US Indexes:
- AMEX Composite
- A capitalization-weighted index of all stocks trading on the American Stock Exchange.
- NASDAQ 100
- The 100 largest non-financial stocks on the NASDAQ exchange.
- NASDAQ Composite
- Midcap index made up of all the OTC stocks that trade on the Nasdaq Market System. 15% of the US market.
- NYSE Composite
- A capitalization-weighted index of all stocks trading on the NYSE.
- Russell 1000
- The Russell 2000 Index measures the performance of the 2,000 smallest companies in the Russell 3000 Index, which represents approximately 10% of the total market capitalization of the Russell 3000 Index. As of the latest reconstitution, the average market capitalization was approximately $421 million; the median market capitalization was approximately $352 million. The largest company in the index had an approximate market capitalization of $1.0 billion. Visit their web site for more information:
http://www.russell.com/us/indexes/default.asp - Russell 2000
- Designed to be a comprehensive representation of the U.S. small-cap equities market. The index consists of the smallest 2000 companies out of the top 3000 in domestic equity capitalization. The stocks range from $40M to $456M in value of outstanding shares. This index is capitalization weighted; i.e., it gives greater weight to stocks with greater market value (i.e., shares * price). Visit their web site for more information:
http://www.russell.com/us/indexes/default.asp - Russell 3000
- The 3000 largest U.S. companies. Visit their web site for more information:
http://www.russell.com/us/indexes/default.asp - Standard & Poor’s 500
- Made up of 400 industrial stocks, 20 transportation stocks, 40 utility, and 40 financial. Market value (#of common shares * price per share) weighted. Dividend returns not included in index. Represents about 70% of US stock market. Cap range 73 to 75,000 million.
- Standard & Poor’s 400 (aka S&P Midcap)
- Tracks 400 industrial stocks. Cap range: 85 million to 6.8 billion.
- Standard & Poor’s 100 (and OEX)
- The S&P 100 is an index of 100 stocks. The “OEX” is the option on this index, one of the most heavily traded options around.
- Value Line Composite
- See Martin Zweig’s Winning on Wall Street for a good description. It is a price-weighted index as opposed to a capitalization index. Zweig (and others) think this gives better tracking of investment results, since it is not over-weighted in IBM, for example, and most individuals are likewise not weighted by market cap in their portfolios (unless they buy index funds).
- Wilshire 5000
- The Wilshire 5000 consists of all US-headquartered companies for which prices are readily available. This historically has excluded pink sheet companies, but as the technology for data delivery has improved, so has the list of names in the index, now over 7000. Needless to say, some of these are quite small. The index is capitalization weighted. Since several companies included in the S&P 500 are headquartered outside of the U.S., it is not true that the Wilshire 5000 contains the S&P 500. For more information about the Wilshire indexes, visit their web site:http://www.wilshire.com
Non-US Indexes:
- CAC-40 (France)
- The CAC-Quarante, this is 40 stocks on the Paris Stock Exchange formed into an index. The futures contract on this index is probably the most heavily traded futures contract in the world.
- DAX (Germany)
- The German share index DAX tracks the 30 most heavily traded stocks (based on the past three years of data) on the Frankfurt exchange.
- FTSE-100 (Great Britain)
- Commonly known as ‘footsie’. Consists of a weighted arithmetical index of 100 leading UK equities by market capitalization. Calculated on a minute-by-minute basis. The footsie basically represents the bulk of the UK market activity.
- Nikkei (Japan)
- “Nikkei” is an abbreviation of “nihon keizai” — “nihon” is Japanese for “Japan”, while “keizai” is “business, finance, economy” etc. Nikkei is also the name of Japan’s version of the WSJ. The nikkei is sometimes called the “Japanese Dow,” in that it is the most popular and commonly quoted Japanese market index.
- JPN
- JPN is a modified price-weighted index that measures the aggregate performance of 210 common stocks actively traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange that are representative of a broad cross section of Japanese industries. Japanese prices are translated without a currency conversion, so the index is not directly affected by dollar/yen changes. JPN is closely related, but not identical, to the Nikkei Index. Options are traded on US exchanges.
- Europe, Australia, and Far-East (EAFE)
- Compiled by Morgan Stanley.
Article Credits:
Contributed-By: Rajiv Arora, Christiane Baader, J. Friedl, David Hull, David W. Olson, Steven Pearson, Steven Scroggin, Chris Lott