The Dow Jones Industrial Average scaled to 38,000 for the first time on Monday. It took 25 sessions to make the 1,000-point leap from 37,000 — the shortest time between milestones since 33,000 to 34,000, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The Dow hit 37,000 on Dec. 13, according to IBD MarketSmith.
The Dow Jones index has 30 component stocks across different industries. The index is price-weighted. So the higher the price of a stock, the greater weight it has on the index's movement. That also means that percentage gains have a different effect. Even if a lower priced stock moves by the same percentage as a higher priced stock, it will not count as much.
That would make investors think that Apple and Microsoft accounted most for the index's bullish move. Microsoft, for instance climbed more than 6% from Dec. 13 to Monday's close.
But these top-ranked stocks were not the ones that boosted the index the most.
Turns out that Travelers led the pack and contributed 188.76 points to the index since Dec. 13.
Biotech Amgen was next with 188.10 added points. Goldman Sachs contributed 153.19 followed by 151.46 points from Salesforce.
Dow Jones stock Microsoft came in fifth with 145.92 points. Caterpillar placed sixth and was the only other stock to add more than 100 points, with a 136.43 contribution.
Apple was a laggard in terms of points. Not only that, it took 26.82 points off the Dow Jones index and was the fourth-lowest contributor to the index.
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