All 30 Dow Jones Stocks Ranked: Buy, Sell or Hold?
UnitedHealth Group, Nvidia and Amazon.com are Wall Street's top Dow Jones stocks to buy now. Some other names might surprise you.


Dow Jones stocks won't always keep up in a rising market, but you can't beat them when it comes to stability and defense in a down market.
Case in point: the S&P 500, the main benchmark for U.S. equity performance, was off almost 9% for the year-to-date through mid-April.
The "growthier" but riskier tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost more than 13%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, by comparison, held up comparatively well. The elite bastion of 30 mostly more mature industry leaders shed 5.5% over the same span.
You can credit the Magnificent 7 stocks for much of the Dow's recent outperformance. Of the mega-cap tech names that drove the bulk of the bull market's returns – and had the farthest to fall when equities turned south – only Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Amazon.com (AMZN) and Nvidia (NVDA) can be found in the blue-chip average.
The fact that the Dow is weighted by price rather than market cap helped limit the damage done by the drawdowns seen in these massive stocks.
It's important to know the Dow's recent outperformance isn't abnormal. Half of the average's components are low-beta stocks. That means they tend to lag in up markets, but hold up better when everything is selling off.
This low-beta skew can have advantages for long-term investors.
After all, as bright a time as it's been for equity investors, downside risks very much remain.
A new international trade regime has injected uncertainty into both global financial markets and the global economy.
Recession fears are rising, with surveys of economists putting the odds of recession hitting in the next year at about 40%. The New York Fed's yield-curve model assigns about a 30% probability of the U.S. entering a recession over the next 12 months.
Should such a change in market fortunes come to pass ... well, that's where Dow Jones stocks come in.
Dow Jones stocks ranked
This collection of industry-leading companies and dividend growth stalwarts with their fortress-like balance sheets can offer relative stability in tempestuous market times.
From the best Dow dividend stocks to the most widely held blue chip stocks, components of the industrial average occupy top spots in the portfolios of hedge funds and billionaire investors.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), in particular, is a huge fan of select Dow stocks.
To get a sense of which Dow Jones stocks Wall Street recommends at an increasingly uncertain time for equities, we screened the DJIA by analysts' consensus recommendations, from worst to first, using data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Here's how the ratings system works: S&P surveys analysts' stock calls and scores them on a five-point scale, where 1.0 equals a Strong Buy and 5.0 is a Strong Sell. Scores between 3.5 and 2.5 translate into Hold recommendations.
Scores higher than 3.5 equate to Sell ratings, while scores equal to or below 2.5 mean that analysts, on average, rate shares at Buy. The closer a score gets to 1.0, the higher conviction the Buy recommendation.
In other words, lower scores are better than higher scores.
Please note that Nvidia replaced Intel (INTC) in the gauge in November, while paint maker Sherwin-Williams (SHW) was swapped in for chemicals company Dow (DOW).
Amazon.com (AMZN) was added to the Dow in February 2024, replacing Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA).
See the table below for analysts' consensus recommendations on all 30 Dow Jones stocks, per S&P Global Market Intelligence, as of April 13, 2025.

Company (Ticker) | Analysts' consensus recommendation score | Analysts' consensus recommendation |
---|---|---|
Travelers (TRV) | 2.64 | Hold |
Caterpillar (CAT) | 2.52 | Hold |
American Express (AXP) | 2.52 | Hold |
International Business Machines (IBM) | 2.43 | Buy |
Amgen (AMGN) | 2.42 | Buy |
Goldman Sachs (GS) | 2.35 | Buy |
Verizon Communications (VZ) | 2.31 | Buy |
Nike (NKE) | 2.23 | Buy |
Sherwin-Williams Company (SHW) | 2.21 | Buy |
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) | 2.18 | Buy |
3M (MMM) | 2.16 | Buy |
Honeywell International (HON) | 2.15 | Buy |
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) | 2.13 | Buy |
Cisco Systems (CSCO) | 2.12 | Buy |
Apple (AAPL) | 2.04 | Buy |
Boeing (BA) | 2.00 | Buy |
Procter & Gamble (PG) | 2.00 | Buy |
Chevron (CVX) | 1.96 | Buy |
McDonald's (MCD) | 1.92 | Buy |
Merck (MRK) | 1.92 | Buy |
Home Depot (HD) | 1.83 | Buy |
Walt Disney (DIS) | 1.77 | Buy |
Salesforce (CRM) | 1.74 | Buy |
Visa (V) | 1.72 | Buy |
Coca-Cola (KO) | 1.69 | Buy |
Walmart (WMT) | 1.55 | Buy |
Microsoft (MSFT) | 1.44 | Strong Buy |
Amazon.com (AMZN) | 1.38 | Strong Buy |
Nvidia (NVDA) | 1.37 | Strong Buy |
UnitedHealth Group (UNH) | 1.30 | Strong Buy |
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Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the publication full time in 2016.
A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, SmartMoney, InvestorPlace, DailyFinance and other tier 1 national publications. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Consumer Reports and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among many other outlets. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.
In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about markets and macroeconomics.
Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.
Disclosure: Dan does not trade individual stocks or securities. He is eternally long the U.S equity market, primarily through tax-advantaged accounts.
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