Yes. It's because of the idiotic way the Dow formula works. The Dow is a price weighted index. To compute the value of the Dow, you sum the per-share prices of the constituents and divide by a magic divisor. So a $50 move in GOOG (~6.6% change) and a $50 move in AAPL (50% change) would have the exact same impact on the value of the index. The kludgey solution to this problem is just to not incorporate high priced stocks into the index.

Incidentally this is why when you hear anyone quoting the Dow you can tell immediately that they are either clueless or an innumerate moron.