Dow is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, Co. delivers a range of science-based products and solutions for its customers. Co.'s operating segments are: Packaging and Specialty Plastics, which focuses on polyolefin product portfolio to deliver plastics to customers; Industrial Intermediates and Infrastructure, which develops intermediate chemicals that are essential to manufacturing processes, as well as downstream, customized materials and formulations that use development technologies; and Performance Materials and Coatings, which franchises that deliver an array of solutions into consumer and infrastructure end-market.
When researching a stock like Dow, many investors are the most familiar with Fundamental Analysis — looking at a company's balance sheet, earnings, revenues, and what's happening in that company's underlying business. Investors who use Fundamental Analysis to identify good stocks to buy or sell can also benefit from DOW Technical Analysis to help find a good entry or exit point. Technical Analysis is blind to the fundamentals and looks only at the trading data for DOW stock — the real life supply and demand for the stock over time — and examines that data in different ways. One of those ways is to calculate a Simpe Moving Average ("SMA") by looking back a certain number of days. One of the most popular "longer look-backs" is the DOW 200 day moving average ("DOW 200 DMA"), while one of the most popular "shorter look-backs" is the DOW 50 day moving average ("DOW 50 DMA"). A chart showing both of these popular moving averages is shown on this page for Dow. Comparing two moving averages against each other can be a useful visualization tool: by calculating the difference between the DOW 200 DMA and the DOW 50 DMA, we get a moving average convergence divergence indicator ("DOW MACD"). The DOW MACD chart, in conjunction with the chart of the moving averages, basically helps in visualizing how the moving averages are showing convergence (moving closer together), or divergence (moving farther apart). |