Dow Jones 65 Composite Average

A composite index that measures changes within the 65 companies that make up three Dow Jones averages: the 30 stocks that form the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), the 20 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Transportation Average (DJTA) and the 15 stocks of the Dow Jones Utility Average (DJUA). The Dow Jones 65 Composite, like the three sub-indexes, is price-weighted.

All of the Dow Jones averages are price-weighted indexes. For this type of index, stocks with higher prices will influence the direction of the average more than lower prices, regardless of the actual size of the company. Most broad market indexes are market-cap weighted, such as the Nasdaq-100 and Standard & Poor's 500.

The combination of the Dow Jones Industrial, Transportation and Utility averages used to be a broad measure of the U.S. economy, as those sectors were once the lion's share of economic production. This is no longer the case, as industries such as healthcare, technology and finance now include some of the largest companies in the world. While the DJIA has, in recent years, included some modern companies in its "industrial" average (such as Microsoft and Intel), most of the Dow Jones 65 stocks are focused in old-line businesses, and do not appear to represent a broad measure of economic performance.