In a milestone marking the transformation of the US economy, Cisco was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average today, and General Motors and Citibank deleted.

While Cisco has been affected by the slowdown, the tech giant still managed a $US1.5 billion profit in its most recent quarter.

The San Jose-based company remains the provider of most of the network hardware that controls the internet’s “pipes” and has been buoyed by aggressive diversification into areas such as business collaboration software and high def videoconferencing.

The full Dow adjustment saw Cisco and holding company Travellers Companies Inc added to the index, and GM and Citibank removed.

Cisco joins fellow blue-chip techs HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft in the Dow (see the full list of components here).

General Motors' well-document decline reached a nadir today as it filed for bankruptcy today (see Fiat and Magna pick up the pieces and Obama heralds 'new GM' as 'old GM' exits with $US180 billion).

Citibank has lost $US27.68 billion over its past four quarters.

Cisco shares (NAS: CSCO) finished today up 5.41% up and continued to advance in after-hours trading.