Shares of General Electric Co. slide 1.1% in early trade Wednesday, a day after the company was pushed out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average after being a member for 111 years. "The U.S. economy has changed: Consumer, finance, health care and technology companies are more prominent today and the relative importance of industrial companies is less," David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, explained in Tuesday's announcement. "Today's change to the DJIA will make the index a better measure of the economy and the stock market." GE is being replaced by Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. which was up 3.3% in early trade. GE's stock has been slammed for the past year after the company announced a major restructuring and canceled its dividend. The Dow is a price-weighted index and its plunging stock meant it was worth less than 10% of the highest-priced stock in the index, breaching an unwritten rule. The Dow was up 0.2% in early trade, while the S&P 500 was up 0.3%.