Today's Wall Street Journal Europe reports that the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by General Motors will result in it leaving the Dow Jones Industrial Average index - the best-known benchmark for Wall Street.

Bankruptcy disqualifies a company from being a constituent of the index - though the fact that GM's market capitalisation is now just 0.1% of the 30-share Dow's weighting won't help much, either.

GM, founded in 1908, has been a fixture of the index since 1925 (though the WSJE, which is owned by Dow Jones, says 1923), and, previously, popped in and out the index briefly during the Great War (but before the Yanks actually joined in).

Can't help wondering what Alfred Sloan would have made of this corporate giant's fall from grace...