Whether that puts old Jonesy up there with the oldest person still alive is anyone’s guess, but it’s a cracking age for a “scientific” metric.

Readers of this blog will surely know that the Dow Jones is a 30-company index of industrial share value on Wall Street. Created by Charles Dow, editor of The Wall Street Journal, it started with just 12 constituent companies.

Changes to the Dow are rare and at the whim of individual editors conscious of the tradition. They don’t deal much with market capitalizations or other measures.

Times Business comments: “It’s unscientific and market professionals mostly use the S&P 500. But for many it remains the unquestioned barometer of US capitalism.”

Let’s hope the old Dow continues sailing away from the sunset.