I did some interesting statistics analysis. The median percentage change of all 65 dow members is 16.06%. DAL is the worst down 52.94%. TXU is the best up 110.85%. During the same period dow is up only 4.01%. If you cannot beat the median percentage change 16.06% trading dow member stocks, you are basically/statistically no better than a dumb. Doing the same analysis on 1990 NYSE stocks (no stocks under $1.0 or bankrupt are considered), the median percentage change for the last year is 14.70%. For 2954 NASDAQ stocks, the median is 0.216% while NASDAQ index is up about 5% for the year. Again for 1492 stocks belonging to any of dow or s&p, the median change is 11.42%.