Other Stock Indexes

Other Stock Indexes

The New York Stock Exchange publishes its own indexes based on the industrial firms, transportation firms, and utilities, among others, traded at the exchange. The most widely quoted is the NYSE Composite an average of all NYSE listed stocks. The American Stock Exchange prepares a similar index on its securities as does the NASDAQ market. Value Line publishes an index based on the securities covered in the Value Line Investment Survey.

Fixed Income Indexes:

More than 400 indexes measure fixed income securities. Despite what the typical investor might think, bonds vary widely in their riskiness and investment characteristics. When comparing performance, investors need to distinguish between corporate bonds, tax-exempt bond, foreign bonds, short and long term bonds, investment grade and junk bonds, and so on. The wide range of available indexes increases the likelihood that investors can identify a benchmark with characteristics they want. The Dow Jones 20 Bond Index is part of the Dow Jones &Company stable of market indexes. Standard &Poor's has more than a dozen indexes of bond, market. Two especially important ones are the S&P Municipal Bond Index and the S&P U.S. government Bond Index.
International Indexes:

The popularity of international investing has triggered an increasing number of useful global indexes. Some of these owe their creation to the popularity of trading in derivative instruments such as futures and options contracts.

1. European Indexes:

In the United Kingdom, the most important index is probably the FT-SE, 100, known as the "Footsie 100". This Financial Times stock exchange is based on the 100 U.K. stocks with the largest capitalization. In Germany, the principal index is the DAX30, specifically introduced for the trading of futures contracts. This total return index includes the reinvestment of dividends on the individual components.
2. Asia and the Pacific Rim:

Japan is the principal market in Asia, although Hong Kong and Singapore are rapidly rising in importance. Japan has the Nikkei 225, a price weighted index that has been around since 1949. This is index contains 225 large, activity traded Japanese stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Another Japanese index, TOPIX, includes about 1,200 large companies. A recent addition for futures market purposes is the Nikkei 300, a capitalization weighted index like the S&P500.