Stock Market Exchanges and Indexes FAQI have found a long list of stock market exchanges and indexes questions that people often ask. Here are those questions and answers to them. NYSE What is the NYSE? The NYSE stands for New York Stock Exchange. It is a place where the buying orders and selling orders of large companies are put together to create filled orders. How Many Companies are in the NYSE? Currently there are 3,615 companies in the NYSE and that number is always growing. Where is the NYSE located at? Um, New York. More precisely 11 Wall Street in lower Manhattan. That is why investors refer to the stock market as Wall Street. What are the NYSE hours of operation? The exchange is open between 9:30 am and 4:00 pm Monday through Friday. Nasdaq What is the difference between the NYSE and NASDAQ? For one the NASDAQ is a place where orders are all filled electronically. The NYSE exchange on the other hand is where orders are still filled on the trading floor manually by traders. The NASDAQ also houses different stocks, many of which do not meet the standards of other exchanges. What does NASDAQ stand for? National Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotations How Many Companies are traded in the NASDAQ About 3,300 and growing. Where is the NASDAQ located? 4 Times Square New York, NY 10036 When did the NASDAQ start? 1971 as a way to trade over the counter stocks, or stocks that cannot be traded on other exchanges. Dow Jones What are the Dow Jones Industrials? These are a series of indexes designed to track the market. How Does the Dow Jones Work? How is the Dow Jones Calculated? The Dow Jones takes the average of all companies in their index. Originally the 12 companies that made up the Dow where added up and dividend by 12. This was the price of the index. Ok, so why is it trading at over $13,000 when the stocks that make it up are trading between $10 to $150? Over the years there have been more mathematical equations accounted for in order to make up for things such as stock splits. A stock may be trading at $40 but because it has split so many times in the past it is counted as trading at $15,000. If these equations where not factored in the Dow would take a 30% drop every time one of their companies has a big split. How does the NASDAQ work? How is the NASDAQ composite Index Calculated? And How is the S&P calculated? The NASDAQ and S&P are calculated very differently than the Dow. Instead of using the average they are market weight calculated. For example if a stock has 1 billion shares and is trading at $50 it has a market capitalization of $50 billion. If the index has a market capitalization of $10 trillion and holds that company, the company makes up (50 billion / 10 trillion) .5% of the Index. If that stock goes up 10% the Index goes up .05%. Everything is factored in and the index moved accordingly. Return to Stock Market Indexes History |
