Tag: stock market indices

On Wednesday stock market moved upward thanks to the optimism provided by falling dollar and an improvement in wholesale inventories data. The Dow Jones industrial average increased by 51 points( 0.5%) to close at 10,337.05 points. The S&P 500 index increased by 4 points (0.4%) to close at 1,095.95 points while the Nasdaq composite increased by 11 points (0.5%) to close at 2,183.73 points. Sector wise except for consumer discretionary which registered a decline of 0.2%, all other sectors were either unchanged or showed an increase. The advancing sectors for the day were materials (increased by 1.3%), technology (increased by 0.9%), Health Care (increased by 0.6%), Financials (increased by 0.4%), Utilities (increased by 0.4%) and Energy (increased by 0.1%). The sectors which were unchanged include Consumer Staples, Industrials and Telecom. Like before dollar and stock markets continued  [...]

Stocks on Tuesday closed marginally higher than the Monday level as the day saw both highs and lows. Finally the stocks closed at 13 month high for the second consecutive day thanks to commodity linked shares that offset the decline in retail shares. The Dow increased by about 30 points(0.3%) to end the day at 10,437.42 points. The S&P 500 increased marginally by 1 points to close just above the 1,100 level. The Nasdaq composite increased by 0.3% to close at 2,203.78. Since October 2008 all these three indexes are currently at their highest level. The sectors which gained on Tuesday included Materials (gain of 0.9%), Telecom (gain of 0.6%), Tech (gain of 0.5%), Consumer Staples (gain of 0.2%), Financials (gain of 0.1%) and Health Care (gain of 0.1%). Consumer discretionary and Utilities registered a decline of 0.7% and 0.4% respectively. Industrials and Energy stocks closed the  [...]

Other important global stock market indices FTSE 100 This index covers stock of 100 most capitalised UK companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. The index is a market value weighted index and is calculated by a method called free float method. Market value (which is price of stock multiplied by the number of shares)is multiplied by the free float factor and then divided by the index divisor to arrive at the index. The Free float Adjustment factor is the total number of shares that is floated as a percentage of issued shares round off to the nearest multiple of 5%. CAC40 This is the most widely used index for tracking stocks on the French stock market. As the name suggest the index includes 40 most capitalized French companies listed on the Paris stock exchange. Like all other major stock indices this is also a market weighted index. DAX This index tracks the stocks of 30 major  [...]

We keep on hearing news that Dow is up and so the market is great and vice versa. This might give you an impression that the Dow Jones Industrial Average or Dow is the heart of the market. Then you also hear about other indices like S&P 500 or the Nasdaq Composite further confusing you whether to be positive about the market or not. Lets try to understand these indices and what they try to tell us about the market. What is an Index? A stock market index is a way of measuring performance of certain stocks in stock market. Stock market index by itself is not such an important number. What is important is the change from an original or base value. An up or down movement gives an indicator of how the particular segment of stock that the index covers is performing and thus how the overall stock market is performing. There are various way of classifying stocks into stock market indices.  [...]