Dow average pays a price as Exxon gives way to Salesforce

The Dow Jones Industrial Average would have been decidedly better off without a change made more than six months ago. Exxon Mobil Corp., which had been in the Dow since 1928, was removed and Salesforce.com Inc. took its place. Exxon climbed 53% from Aug. 31, the date of its ouster, through Friday. Only Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Caterpillar Inc. posted bigger gains in the period among the average’s 30 stocks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Salesforce, on the other hand, was the Dow industrials’ worst performer. The business-software maker fell 23% and cost the average about 400 points, or 1.3%.