Overview
- S&P Dow Jones Indices confirmed that Alphabet’s Class A shares (GOOGL) will join the 30-stock Dow at the market open on Monday, June 29, replacing Verizon.
- Only Alphabet’s Class A shares (ticker GOOGL) are being added; Class C shares (GOOG) will not be included in the index.
- Funds that track the Dow must sell Verizon and buy GOOGL ahead of the change and S&P DJI will adjust the Dow divisor to prevent an artificial index jump when trading opens.
- Because the Dow is price-weighted rather than market-cap-weighted, GOOGL’s immediate influence on the index will be modest at current prices and roughly comparable to existing members such as Sherwin-Williams.
- Alphabet’s shares have traded lower recently after the departures of AI researchers Noam Shazeer and John Jumper, but analysts and S&P DJI note that Dow inclusion is mainly symbolic and does not change Alphabet’s business fundamentals, with past index additions showing mixed short-term effects.