Charles Dow - Working On Wall Street

Working On Wall Street

In 1880, Dow left Providence for New York City, realizing that the ideal location for business and financial reporting was there. The 29-year-old found work at the Kiernan Wall Street Financial News Bureau, which delivered by messenger hand written financial news to banks and brokerages. When John Kiernan asked Dow to find another reporter for the Bureau, Dow invited Edward Davis Jones to work with him. Jones and Dow had met when they worked together at the Providence Evening Press. Jones, a Brown University dropout, could skillfully and quickly analyze a financial report. He, like Dow, was committed to reporting on Wall Street without bias. Other reporters could be bribed into reporting favorably on a company to drive up stock prices. Dow and Jones refused to manipulate the stock market.

The two young men believed that Wall Street needed another financial news bureau. In November 1882, they started their own agency, Dow, Jones & Company. The business' headquarters was located in the basement of a candy store. Dow, Jones, and their four employees could not handle all the work, so they brought in Charles Bergstresser, who became a partner. Bergstresser's strength lay in his interviewing skills. Jones once remarked that he could make a wooden Indian talk.

In November 1883, the company started putting out an afternoon two-page summary of the day's financial news called the Customers' Afternoon Letter. It soon achieved a circulation of over 1,000 subscribers and was considered an important news source for investors. It included the Dow Jones stock average, an index that included nine railroad issues, one steamship line, and Western Union.