1 November 1999: Microsoft and Intel join the Dow
Microsoft and Intel became the first Nasdaq-listed companies added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, alongside Home Depot and SBC Communications. Out went Union Carbide, Goodyear, Sears and Chevron. It was a symbolic victory for the new economy at the height of the tech boom. The timing was rough: both tech giants peaked within months and took many years to regain those levels.
The lesson: Index additions often reward past winners, not guarantee future ones.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Intel at the start of 2000 → $976 today, vs $4,626 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2000, the first year in our price data after the event. That is a loss of $24.39, while a plain index fund over the same years made $3,626.
What Intel teaches: Market leadership is not permanent; Intel's manufacturing edge looked unassailable for decades and eroded through a handful of missed bets and execution slips.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $41.00 | $976 | $4,626 |
| 2003 | $16.00 | $2,500 | $7,727 |
| 2005 | $23.00 | $1,739 | $5,763 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Intel? Every starting year and the full story →
More Intel history
- 22 March 1993: Intel introduces the Pentium
- 6 June 2005: Apple announces a switch to Intel chips
- 18 July 1968: Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore found Intel
- 15 November 1971: Intel advertises the first microprocessor
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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