Tag: stock market price index

Most commonly used indices in the US market The Dow One of the oldest and most widely used index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average also called the Dow is said to be measuring the pulse of the market. Currently Dow includes 30 stocks each of which are the stock of the US’s most influential companies. Companies included in Dow are 3m Co, Alcoa, American Express ,AT&T , Bank of America Corporation, Boeing Co. ,Caterpillar, Chevron Corp, Cisco Systems, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , Exxon Mobil ,General Electric Company ,Hewlett-Packard , Intel Corporation , International Business Machines , Johnson & Johnson , JP Morgan & Chase & Co , Kraft Foods Inc. , McDonald's Corporation , Merck & Co, Microsoft Corporation , Pfizer Inc , The Coca-Cola Company , The Home Depot, The Procter & Gamble Company , Travelers Companies Inc , United Technologies Corporation , Verizon  [...]

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.  [...]