Oct. 8--It's the first thing TV viewers see these days. It's plastered on the front pages of newspapers across the country, and when most people talk about "the market," they mean the Dow.

But that's not the way the Dow Jones industrial average, a more than century-old index of 30 blue-chip stocks, is viewed by market and investment professionals. As far as they are concerned, they said in interviews, the better metric is the Standard & Poor's 500.

"To an extent, it's [the Dow] a media-hyped representation of the stock market," said Richard Yamarone, a senior economist at Argus Research in Manhattan. "Many times it's misleading."

The other indexes -- the S&P 500 chief among them, professionals say -- present a broader view of the markets and the economy. Additionally, the S&P 500 is one of 10 components of the Conference Board's leading economic indicators. The Dow is not.

Stocks in the Dow, owned by Dow Jones & Co., are picked by the editors of The Wall Street Journal. A committee of S&P executives picks the stocks in the S&P 500.

In the view of investment professionals, the Dow sometimes presents an exaggerated picture of stocks. The Dow has swung wildly in the past few weeks, plummeting about 800 points during Monday's trading session, only to end up down about 370 points.

"Basing your judgments on the Dow is like modeling your behavior based on the actions of a deeply manic-depressive individual," said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the labor-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

Spokesmen for the Dow did not return phone calls for comment.

The Dow, first published in a newspaper called Customer's Afternoon Letter on May 26, 1896, represented 12 stocks, including American Cotton Oil Co., National Lead Co., and Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co., among others. Over the years the Dow has been updated to more accurately reflect the U.S. economy. A decade ago, the Dow added "new economy" companies such as Microsoft, Intel, The Home Depot and SBC Communications, while dropping "old economy" companies such as Union Carbide, Goodyear, Chevron, and Sears, Roebuck.

That was nice, said Alan Newman, editor of CrossCurrents, an investment advisory newsletter in Wantagh, but not enough for the pros. The S&P 500 represents about 80 percent of the value of all U.S. equities. The Dow represents about 20 percent, he noted.

"Obviously, the public thinks the Dow is the market," Newman said. "So you have to respect that. I'll look at it simply because I want to know what the public is thinking."

And the Dow is an institution firmly ingrained in the public's mind, said Hugh Johnson, of Johnson Illington Advisors in Albany.

"It's like Trinity Church," Johnson said. "It's a part of the fabric of Wall Street."

DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE:

--Number of stocks: 30

--Some companies: 3M, Bank of America, Microsoft, Pfizer

STANDARD & POOR'S 500:

--Number of stocks: 500

--Some companies: Abbott Labs, American Express, Target Corp., Pepsi

NASDAQ:

--Number of stocks: 3,200

--Some companies: Oracle, Dell, Yahoo, Apple

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