While the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) has climbed 3.4% year-to-date entering Thursday's trading, three blue-chip giants went the opposite direction. Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT | MSFT Price Prediction), and UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) became the index's biggest drags, each shedding double-digit percentages while the broader market marched higher. Beating earnings doesn't guarantee stock gains when investors question the path forward.
Revenue -- $2.14 billion, up 2% year over year, driven by Dow Jones and Digital Real Estate Services, with digital and AI-related revenues providing incremental uplift. Total Segment EBITDA -- $340 million, increased 5% year over year with 40 basis points improvement in margin to 15.9%. Net Income from Continuing Operations -- $150 million, compared to $149 million a year ago. Adjusted EPS -- $0.22, up from $0.20 in the same period last year.
Dow Jones said Wednesday it has entered an exclusive partnership with Polymarket to distribute real-time prediction market data across its consumer news platforms, marking a big and mainstream expansion of alternative market signals into some of the most widely read financial publications in the world. Under the agreement, Polymarket's prediction data will appear across Dow Jones digital properties, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and Investor's Business Daily.
Yet you can do better than just matching the averages. Michael O'Higgins popularized the Dogs of the Dow strategy in his 1991 book . It calls for buying the top 10 highest-yielding dividend stocks from the 30 Beating the Dow Dow Jones Industrial Average companies and has delivered market-beating returns. You hold onto the stocks for one year, then sell them, and start the process all over again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Profit-taking pressure at elevated levels, combined with a series of mixed macroeconomic signals, has left the market in a state of hesitation, unable to establish a clear short-term trend.
