Pfizer and the Dow

Well, it turns out that Pfizer‘s (PFE) turnaround, isn’t quite turning around. The company’s blockbuster new drug to replace Lipitor apparently has some problems.
Here’s something interesting: Even though Pfizer is getting slammed by over 11% today, because the Dow is weighted by price, the sell-off isn’t having a very big impact. By market value, Pfizer is the ninth-largest Dow stock (true, it was higher last week). The company makes up about 4.4% of the Dow’s total value, which is about $4 trillion. However, Pfizer’s low price means that it makes up just 1.6% of the Dow.
GM is by far the biggest moocher in the Dow. It has a larger weighting in the Dow than Microsoft even though MSFT’s market value is 17 times larger! This is why I follow the S&P 500.

Posted by on December 4th, 2006 at 3:02 pm


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