Microsoft and Intel join Dow Jones index

MICROSOFT AND Intel have finally made it into one of the world's more august clubs. Both stocks are to be part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the world's leading stock index.

MICROSOFT AND Intel have finally made it into one of the world's more august clubs. Both stocks are to be part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the world's leading stock index.

The shift represents the first time in its 103-year history that stocks from the Nasdaq index have been added to the Dow, a sign of the growing dominance of technology in the US economy.

Microsoft, the world's largest software company, Intel, the chip maker, and SBC Communications, a telecommunications company, all join the Dow in a sign of its growing shift towards becoming a technology index. Home Depot, the do-it-yourself and hardware retailer, is also joining, having profited from the expansion of home improvement in the 1990s.

But in the game of musical chairs, several companies have also been removed from the index, all traditional giants which have lost importance as other sectors have grown.

They are Sears Roebuck; Chevron, America's third largest oil company; Goodyear Tire and Rubber, and Union Carbide, a chemical company. The changes take effect on 1 November.