Alcoa, HP and Bank of America dropped from Dow Jones Industrial Average - Goldman Sachs, Visa and Nike added

U.S. company S&P Dow Jones Indices, the owner of the namesake U.S. stock exchange index, has decided to remove the America's largest aluminum producer Alcoa, computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Bank of America from the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

According to David Blitzer, managing director of S&P Dow Jones Indices, the main reason for kicking these companies off the Dow Jones Industrial Average is the fact that their stock price dropped too low and stayed on that level for too long, thus pushing down the total index value, the company said in a release.

These changes, prompted by the low stock price of the three companies and the Index Committee's desire to diversify the sector and industry group representation of the index, will become effective on September 23rd, the regional web portal Seebiz has reported.

The exiting companies will be replaced by investment bank Goldman Sachs, credit card company Visa and footwear maker Nike, the company announced.