 It is a grouping of stocks, bonds, or other securities – or it can be a “basket” of goods and services (Consumer Price Index or “CPI”)  Purpose is to measure a change in value  Helps to give a snapshot of the market or a particular segment  Provides a “benchmark” so that investors can compare their portfolio performance with that of the index

 Dow Jones Industrial Average – 30 of the largest and most influential US companies  S&P 500 – the 500 largest stocks as measured by market value  QQQ – 100 largest stocks on NASDAQ  Russell 3000 – includes many of the largest publicly traded stocks, but also includes “mid-cap” and “small-cap” companies

 MSCI EAFE – Morgan Stanley Capital International Europe, Australasia and Far East Tracks international stocks from a North American investor’s perspective  Nikkei – the “Dow” of Japan  FTSE - the UK’s “Dow”  CAC – France’s “Dow”  DAX – Germany’s “Dow”

 Dow Jones  ,804  ,879  , 155  ,492  ,776  ,000  NASDAQ  ,765  ,026  ,978  ,642  ,545  ,714  S&P 500  ,070  ,785  ,418  ,244   ,504  MSCI EAFE – EurAsia/Far E  ,393  ,379  ,083  ,349  Nikkei – Japanese “Dow”  ,621  ,152  ,527  ,304  ,627  ,916

FTSE - LondonCAC - France DAX - Germany HANG SENG - Hong Kong ,545 4,241 9,786 23, ,522 4,112 9,156 23, ,914 3,605 7,517 22, ,872 3,867 7,018 22, ,771 4,050 6,250 22, ,898 2,840 4,203 14,901 Earlier 6,930 6,542 8,067 28,644

 Dow Transportation – tracks shipping, airlines, trucking, railroads  Dow Utilities – tracks electrical & oil companies  Dow Composite – tracks 65 largest companies  Dow Jones Islamic Index – launched in 1999 Removes companies that sell pork products, tobacco, alcohol, weapons, gambling Based on Shari’ah law

 An easy way to ride the wave of a rising market  Invest in the “Index” through a mutual fund or EFT (Exchange Traded Fund) Not a stock  Indexes typically rise over time  If you invested in the Dow Index in 1980 Bought in 2007 at 7,776 Now at 17,804 – a nice return on investment! Since the index is not actively managed, choose the provider with the lowest fees

 In Excel – put your name at the top of the page Find an index and list the name and ticker symbol  Describe what the index represents Is it a country’s goods and services? Is it an industry?  Create a graph that represents the index value over the past 10 years You can do this in Excel quite easily  Explain why the index has changed over the past 10 years using your current knowledge  Format and print