Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

What's the justification for the DJIA being share-price weighted?
The share-price weighting of the DJIA is a historical artifact.  The DJIA remains share-price weighted today because that's the way it has always been done, and we're talking about an index with more than a hundred years' history.  The DJIA was first calculated on May 26, 1896. Perhaps, back then, price-weighting was the most straight-forward & feasible way to calculate it each day.  You're right that it doesn't make a lot of sense, and that's why the S&P500 and other indexes are better barometers.