Business

Dow Reshuffle: Apple Joins Blue-Chip Index, AT&T Gets Booted

Published

11 years ago

March 7, 2015

In this Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013, file photo, the Apple logo is illuminated in the entrance to the Fifth Avenue Apple store, in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

BERNARD CONDON, AP Business Writers
MAE ANDERSON, AP Business Writers

NEW YORK (AP) — Apple is in. AT&T is out.

In another milestone for the popular and profitable iPhone giant, Apple will replace AT&T in the venerable Dow Jones industrial average on March 19, the manager of the index announced Friday.

The move isn’t likely to impact the 30-stock index much, and will have no effect on the fortunes of the two companies. But market experts say it does have symbolic importance, sort of like getting an Oscar at the Academy Awards — or at least a nomination.

The change cements Apple as “the gold standard of technology,” says Daniel Ives, a financial analyst at FBR Research. “They’ve really become the modern-day Wright Brothers.”

The reshuffling of the 119-year-old Dow, a barometer of market fortune and folly once dominated by railroads, also reflects a changed business world.

“It underscores that technology continues to be a critical driver of the overall economy,” says Edward Jones analyst Bill Kreher.

Apple is the world’s most valuable company. Its market value on the stock exchange, or what it would take to buy all its shares, closed last month above $700 billion, a first for any company.

Apple won’t get top billing in the Dow, though. Thanks to a quirk in the way the index is calculated, that honor will go to a company a little over a tenth as valuable: Goldman Sachs.

The Dow weights companies by how much it costs to buy a single share, not all of them. On Friday, a Goldman share fetched $186.91 versus $126.60 for Apple.

A look at the musical chairs at the world’s most famous index:

THE REASON

For all the symbolic importance, the trigger for the move is less colorful. The manager of the index, the S&P Dow Jones Indices, said it’s making the change in response to a planned stock split for Visa, another Dow member.

After its four-to-one split, Visa will wind up with a lower price. S&P said that would reduce the weight of the information technology sector in the Dow because Visa, a credit-card and payment-processing giant, counts as a tech stock. Adding Apple will help balance out this reduction.

TWEAKING THE INDEX

S&P Dow Jones Indices said the decision to fold in Apple won’t alter the overall level of the index, which stood at 17,856 Friday.

S&P Dow Jones is casting the move as a sort of a housekeeping maneuver, a way to ensure that the index better reflects the U.S. economy and markets.

The switch is not a reflection of its view of Apple.

“This doesn’t mean we like the stock, or don’t like the stock, or something like that,” says David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones.

CHALLENGES AT AT&T

While the Dow change wasn’t triggered by anything AT&T did, it comes at a challenging time for the phone giant.

The nation’s second-largest wireless carrier is facing pressure from smaller rivals T-Mobile and Sprint in a competitive environment in which most Americans already have a cellphone.

Its stock has risen just 3.5 percent in the past 12 months. That compares with a 10.4 percent gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500. Apple, meanwhile, has jumped 67 percent.

To keep growing, AT&T has had to look beyond cellphones — to tablets and connected cars, for example. Adding a tablet to a phone plan gets AT&T another $10 in monthly service fees.

The Dallas-based company is also trying to wean customers off equipment subsidies and shift them toward installment plans in which they ultimately pay full price for a phone.

In its most recent quarter, AT&T booked a loss due to one-time expenses. But its revenue rose 4 percent as it added 1.9 million subscribers, double the year-ago quarterly increase.

AT&T has bounced in and out of the blue chip average over the Dow’s long history. It first entered in 1916 as American Telephone & Telegraph, joining Central Leather, Studebaker and other industrial giants in an elite club of 20 companies. Much later, in 2004, AT&T was kicked out only to return the following year when it merged with SBC Communications.

THE DOW STILL MATTERS

Created in 1896, the Dow is one of the oldest gauges of stocks. Grover Cleveland was U.S. president that year. Companies like the Pacific Mail Steamship were counted among its ranks.

The index tracks only 30 stocks. The Standard & Poor’s 500 reflects the moves of 500.

The S&P 500 also ranks companies differently, assigning weights based on the value of all a company’s shares, not just one. That gives Apple more influence on daily moves in the index than any other stock. It accounts for nearly 4 percent of the index.

Professional investors focus more on the S&P 500 because they think it reflects the stock market better. They tend to use that index, not the Dow, to judge the performance of their own portfolios.

Ordinary investors also prefer the S&P 500, judging from the money they’ve put into index funds that mimic its performance. Investors have $4 trillion in 1,261 funds that track the S&P 500, according to Morningstar. That compares with just $13.6 billion in 12 Dow-based index funds.

Still, the Dow can’t be dismissed as a relic. It continues to be much cited and isn’t seen as wildly distorted.

One reason is that, for all its flaws, the Dow has largely mirrored the ups and downs of the much larger S&P 500. In the past 12 months, for instance, the Dow has risen 8.7 percent versus the S&P 500’s 10.4 percent.

The last big Dow shake-up came in September 2013, when Goldman Sachs, Nike and Visa knocked out Alcoa, Bank of America and Hewlett-Packard.

___

AP Business Writer Matthew Craft contributed to this report.

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At the event, 16 entities signed the EIP pledge, vowing to take steps to increase public contracting opportunities in their spheres for small and historically underutilized businesses. The pledge signees included Hub International, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California High-Speed Rail Authority, the Port of Oakland, Robert Graham of Webcor Builders, Holder Construction, the Weitz Company, Sky Blue Builders, Hornblower, Swinerton, Luster National, Talson Solutions, Center for Community Wealth Building, and the Construction Contractors Alliance.

Published

1 week ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Toks Omishakin, secretary of the California State Transportation Agency, was one of the speakers at the event. Photo by Shellee Fisher Photography and Design.

By Calvin Naito, Special to The Post

On June 4, a national nonprofit named the Equity in Infrastructure Project (EIP) – which aims to increase public construction contracting opportunities for small and historically underutilized businesses – held a day-long event in downtown San Francisco to rally supporters and build momentum to its cause.

It was attended by more than 100 individuals from public agencies, private firms, and other organizations committed to increasing contracting opportunities with governmental agencies, thereby creating more competition and lowering public costs.

The EIP event was held the Hyatt Regency San Francisco in conjunction with BuildIT, which aims to increase contracting opportunities for LGBT-owned businesses.

At the event, 16 entities signed the EIP pledge, vowing to take steps to increase public contracting opportunities in their spheres for small and historically underutilized businesses.

The pledge signees included Hub International, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California High-Speed Rail Authority, the Port of Oakland, Robert Graham of Webcor Builders, Holder Construction, the Weitz Company, Sky Blue Builders, Hornblower, Swinerton, Luster National, Talson Solutions, Center for Community Wealth Building, and the Construction Contractors Alliance.

Following the workshop, BuildIT hosted a VIP evening reception honoring EIP, whose principals – Phil Washington, John Procari, and Rick Jacobs – accepted the award.

The event also set in motion the coalition’s efforts to implement recommendations from EIP’s “Procurement for Prosperity: A Playbook.”

The Playbook is a practical guide for public agency leaders and procurement and contracting practitioners to grow the capacity of small and first-time contractors, strengthen competition, and deliver better value for taxpayers.

Toks Omishakin, Secretary of the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA), a long-time EIP supporter, also told attendees, “This is about commitment. This has been a life’s work. This is a tailwind moment.”

The event’s presenting sponsor was Hub International, one of the largest insurance brokerages in the nation, which was joined by partners Travelers Insurance and the State Compensation Insurance Fund.

After the pledge-signing ceremony, attendees participated in a workshop in which they examined the policies, practices, and programs needed to meet EIP goals, learned from practitioners, and identified next steps toward utilizing the Playbook.

Ingrid Meriwether, formerly of Merriwether & Williams Insurance Services (MWIS) and current president of Hub International’s Aligned Risk Management, MWIS, described the hard-fought lessons she and her MWIS team have learned over the last three decades administering contractor development programs (CDPs) for the City and County of San Francisco, Alameda County, City of Los Angeles, LA Metro, and other municipalities.

The CDPs help small and local construction firms win public infrastructure contracts with these government agencies. The program provides bonding assistance, contract financing, technical support, training, and other services to underrepresented businesses funded by public agencies who seek greater contracting participation with these firms.

Merriwether said programs like these “break down systemic barriers, create greater fairness, and save taxpayers money by enabling more competition. The contractor development programs have, cumulatively, over two decades, helped contractors access over $1 billion in bonding, supporting over $380 million in awarded contracts, and maintaining a loss ratio 250 times lower than the industry average – while saving participating municipalities more than $27 million in contracting costs as a result of enabling more competition.”

Rick Jacobs, EIP co-founder and co-chair urged attendees make plans to meet again in the near future “to continue building on this work, share progress on organizational commitments, and discuss how we can collectively advance the goals of the EIP pledge.”

For more information on the EIP and to access a copy of the Playbook, go online to https://equityininfrastructure.org/

Calvin Naito is communications manager for Equity in Infrastructure Project.

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Oakland Museum Presents Landmark Retrospective Celebrating Beloved Bay Area Artist Mildred Howard

“Poetics of Memory” coincides with a year of major recognition for Howard. In 2026, she received the California Arts Council’s 50th Anniversary Award, honoring artists whose work has shaped California’s cultural and civic life, as well as the Museum of the African Diaspora’s Artist Impact Award. In 2025, she was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of her transformative contributions to American cultural life.

Published

1 week ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Mildred Howard. Photo by Christine Cueto for the Oakland Museum of California, 2025.

Special to The Post

The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) opened “Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory,” the first major museum survey of Bay Area artist Mildred Howard, on June 12.

The exhibition spans five decades of Howard’s influential work, bringing together immersive installations, found-object sculptures, archival materials, and new commissions that explore memory, identity, and power in American life.

Howard was born in San Francisco in 1945 and raised in the East Bay, where she went on to study Afro-Haitian dance, make and sell clothing, and experiment with collage and sculpture.

Her multimedia art practice emerged from these experiences, later becoming associated with West Coast conceptual art, San Francisco funk, and a vibrant community of artists like Oliver Jackson, Betye Saar, and Raymond Saunders. Since the 1970s, she has used found materials and family stories to explore memory—both individual and collective.

At OMCA, visitors enter “Poetics of Memory” through a series of intimate galleries featuring Howard’s early mixed-media pieces and sculptures, along with a large video projection of a number of her public artworks.

Together, they emphasize Howard’s interest in everyday objects as powerful carriers of individual and shared stories. Highlights include collages that remix images of the artist herself; found-object sculptures like The History of the United States with a few Parts Missing (2007) that address omissions in dominant narratives; and public works like “Locks and Keys for Harry Bridges” (2001) that transform urban space into a meditation on access and labor.

This culminates in a richly detailed “studio” environment, where works in progress, archival exhibition flyers, historic photographs of Howard and her community, postcards from fellow artists, and other materials offer insight into her creative process and daily life.

The exhibition then opens into a high-ceilinged, dramatically lit space that brings together Howard’s signature immersive installations. On one end, “Crossings” (1997/2026) – a field of hundreds of ceramic eggs leading to an ornate mirror – suggests cycles of birth, motherhood, and transition, while drawing on the emotional echoes of the Middle Passage. On the other end, “Blackbird in a Red Sky” (a.k.a. “Fall of the Blood House”) (2002) – a red glass shack bordered by a pond – also uses reflection and transparency to draw viewers into the work and prompt consideration of themes of identity and home.

Howard’s newest video installation, “Moving Stills” (2026), repurposes never-before-seen family footage she took as a teenager on a train trip to the American South. Projected onto cascading layers of translucent fabric that stretch across an entire gallery wall, the piece immerses viewers in a layered meditation on memory, migration, and time.

The “Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory” exhibit will be on display through Oct. 11 at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland, CA 94612. Museum hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours on Fridays to 9 p.m.

This story is sourced from the Oakland Museum of California press office.

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Alameda County

Ferry Fares to Increase July 1 as Ridership Hits Record Highs

The Oakland and Alameda routes will increase from $4.90 to $5.10, the South San Francisco route will go up from $7.40 to $7.60, and the Vallejo route will increase from $9.90 to $10.

Published

1 week ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Courtesy photo.

By Mike Aldax, The Richmond Standard

Starting July 1, the standard adult fare for the San Francisco Bay Ferry route between Richmond and San Francisco will increase to $5.20, up from the current $4.90.

Discounted fares for eligible passengers, including youth, seniors, people with disabilities, and Clipper START users, will rise to $2.60 from the current $2.40. Children under 5 will continue to ride for free.

The Oakland and Alameda routes will increase from $4.90 to $5.10, the South San Francisco route will go up from $7.40 to $7.60, and the Vallejo route will increase from $9.90 to $10.

The adjustments are part of a systemwide fare update approved by the agency’s Board of Directors, which is moving away from a flat 3% annual increase to route-specific pricing for the 2027 and 2028 fiscal years.

This fare update arrives as San Francisco Bay Ferry celebrates a historic May, transporting 301,270 passengers. The record-breaking figure represents an 8% increase over May 2025 and marks the third consecutive month of record-setting ridership.

Furthermore, it is the sixth month in a row that passenger numbers have exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Weekend travel has been a primary driver of this growth, with average weekend ridership seeing a 56% increase compared to pre-pandemic trends.

The agency states that the fare adjustments are necessary to ensure the long-term fiscal sustainability of public ferry services. By shifting to route-specific adjustments, the agency aims to offset rising operating costs while maintaining the high levels of service frequency and reliability.