INDICES

The Heart of Stock Market Trading

Indices traders speculate on price movements in stock Indices like the FTSE 100, the Dow Jones and DAX.

These well-known Indices are essentially baskets of individual Shares which are often ranked by independent institutions like major banks or specialist companies like Standard & Poor’s, the FTSE Group and Deutsche Börse. Some of the biggest Indices markets in the world have long, distinguished histories. Indices price movements and volatility are impacted by factors like political events, major factors which affect companies in a particular sector, economic data like employment figures and big changes in the currencies markets.

Some of the most heavily traded live Indices markets include:

The FTSE 100 – Sometimes called the ‘UK 100,’ this represents the UK’s hundred biggest companies by market capital
Dow Jones – Often referred to as simply ‘Wall Street’ this comprises 30 of the US’ biggest publicly owned companies
The DAX – Referred to as the ‘Germany 30,’ this index is made up of 30 major German companies
NASDAQ 100 –The ‘US Tech 100,’ is a capitalization-weighted index made up of over 100 tech companies in the US
Nikkei 225 – Japan’s biggest price-weighted index is comprised of 225 of the country’s biggest companies
CAC 40 – Simply referred to as the France 40 this comprises 40 of France’s biggest companies by capitalization