A week of pain and ignominy for American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG - News) took another hard turn on Thursday when it got booted from the Dow Jones industrial average, ending the shortest term any company has spent in the blue-chip index since the Great Depression.
Taking its place come Monday's opening bell is Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE:KFT - News), the first pure food company in the index in 23 years. Emblematic of the current market turmoil, the maker of such comfort foods as Oreo cookies and Kraft Cheese was apparently seen as a better fit for the world's most-watched stock index than another risky financial company.
AIG, which required an $85 billion government bailout to avert bankruptcy earlier this week, was added to the Dow in April 2004 and was touted at the time as representative of the growing importance of financial services to the U.S. economy.
[via chucks_angels]
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