The Short List Of Dow Jones Stocks That Are Actually Up This Year: Hint — It's Very Short

The stock market has had a rough going for the first nine months of the year in 2022. All the major indexes are down year-to-date, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Here’s a look at the four stocks in the index that have posted positive gains in 2022.

What Happened: Created in 1896 by Charles Dow, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is one of the oldest and most followed equity indexes for overall stock market health. The Dow Jones Industrial Average consists of 30 stocks on a price-weighted basis.

Benzinga reported that in the first half of 2022, only eights of the 30 stocks in the index were positive on the year. That list has now been cut in half with only four of the Dow Jones Industrial Average stock components having a positive return year-to-date in 2022.

The stocks with positive returns through the first nine months are (returns do not include dividends):

• Chevron Corporation CVX: +22.6%
• Merck & Co., Inc. MRK: +12.4%
• UnitedHealth Group Inc UNH: +0.6%
• Amgen, Inc. AMGN: +0.2%
• The next best-performing stocks through the first three quarters are:
• Travelers Companies Inc TRV: -2.2%
• Johnson & Johnson JNJ: -4.5%
• Coca-Cola Inc KO: -5.4%
• The seven stocks mentioned above were all positive through the first six months of 2022. The eighth stock that was positive in the first half that is now down 11.1% in 2022 is IBM IBM, which got hit harder in the third quarter than the others.

A total of 26 of the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average components have a negative year-to-date return. Of that total, 17 of the stocks are down 20% or more year-to-date.

The biggest declines year-to-date through the first three quarters in the index are:

• Nike Inc NKE: -50.2%
• Intel Corporation INTC: -49.8%
• Salesforce Inc CRM: -43.4%
• Boeing BA: -39.9%
• Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc WBA: -39.8%

Related Link: 10 Highest Yielding Dow Jones Stocks 

Why It’s Important: Through the first nine months of 2022, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust DIA, which tracks the index, is down 21.3%. The ETF was down 15.5% through the first six months of the year, adding to the declines in the third quarter.

The Dow Jones ETF is down 13.5% over the last year and is up 10.1% over the last five years.

The SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF SPY, which tracks the S&P 500 Index, was down 23.3% in the first nine months of 2022. The ETF is down 14.5% over the last year and up 41.8% over the last five years.

The first half of the year saw eight of the 30 Dow Jones components positive as some investors searched for value stocks and dividend yields. With only four stocks in the index positive through the first nine months, a clearer picture is painted that no stocks or sectors are safe during the current bear market.

Photo: FrankHH via Shutterstock