Dow Jones Average Dominated by Manufacturers

I've posted many times about the supposed "decline/demise/death of American manufacturing," how we supposedly "don't make anything here any more," etc. etc.  

And yet what is probably the most popular and most widely-quoted measure of the health of America's stock market?  It's the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), which is dominated by U.S. manufacturers.  Of the 30 component companies in the DJIA, 19 are American manufacturers: 3M, Dupont, Aloca, IBM, Boeing, Intel, Merck, GE, Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, United Technologies, Caterpillar, Johnson and Johnson, Cisco, Coca-Cola and Kraft. 

When we want a quick barometer of how American companies and the U.S. economy are performing, we use the manufacturing-dominated DJIA.  It's maybe a simple point, but I don't think most people realize how important, vibrant and dynamic America's manufacturing remains even today.  The fact that we look to a stock market index dominated by our manufacturing sector illustrates its continued importance to the economy, and underscores the reality that it's a sector that's not in decline the way it gets portrayed by the media.