Stock Market Today

The S&P 500 index  dates back to 1957 in its modern version (although it has been extrapolated backwards to several decades earlier for performance comparison purposes). This index provides a broad snapshot of the overall US equity market; in fact, over 70% of all U.S. equity is tracked by the S&P 500. The index selects [...]

The New York Stock Exchange (also known by its initials, NYSE, or its nickname, the “Big Board”) is the largest and oldest stock exchange in the United States. It traces its origins back to 1792, when a group of brokers met under a tree at the tip of Manhattan and signed an agreement to trade [...]

Not surprisingly, the Nasdaq Composite tracks all of the stocks listed on the Nasdaq exchange . The index dates back to 1971, which is when the Nasdaq exchange was first formalized. The index is used mainly to track technology stocks, and thus it is not a good indicator of the market as a whole. Unlike [...]

The Dow Jones Industrial average is by far the most famous of all the stock indices. It is composed of 30 widely traded blue chip stocks (large, well-established companies  that are leaders  in their respective industries). The 30 stocks are chosen by the editors  of the Wall Street  Journal (which is published by Dow Jones [...]

In addition  to the three market theories mentioned above, there are other ways of thinking about the market as a whole, that are less theoretical and more grounded in what is actually happening to them. One way is to describe the overall trends  in the market, such as by defining them as bearish or bullish. [...]