Monsanto is mentioned as a possible Dow stock
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is due for a shakeup soon. The Associated Press reports that General Motors will get kicked out of the venerable index if it files for bankruptcy, as it’s expected to do within the next few days.
Furthermore, St. Louis’ own Monsanto is on a short list of companies that analysts think might replace GM in the Dow. The AP reports:
In a research note last month, Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist for BNY ConvergEx Group, laid out seven possible replacements for GM: bankers Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co.; high-tech firms Cisco Systems Inc., Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Oracle Corp.; and agricultural products maker Monsanto Co.
Monsanto has been mentioned before as a possible Dow component. Its market capitalization, at $43 billion, is larger than nine of the 30 Dow stocks, including Citigroup and Boeing.
(5 votes, average: 4.6 out of 5)
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
I suppose that there is some prestige in being included in the Dow, but it obviously has little to do with long-term financial success.
The S & P 500 (or Wilshire 5000) are better indicators of the state of the overall business economy, and it is unfortunate that the popular news media don’t report more on them. But of course, this is the only major country in the world that still hasn’t had the smarts to convert to the metric system either (except, thankfully, for the armed forces).