American Stock Exchange

The American Stock Exchange (AMEX) is an American stock exchange situated in New York. AMEX is a mutual organization, owned by its members. Until 1929 it was known as the New York Curb Exchange. On 2008-01-17, NYSE Euronext announced it would acquire the American Stock Exchange for $260 million in stock.

National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System

The NASDAQ (acronym of National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System) is an American stock exchange. It is the largest electronic screen-based equity securities trading market in the United States. With approximately 3,200 companies, it lists more companies and has more trades per day than any other U.S. market.

It was founded in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), who divested themselves of it in a series of sales in 2000 and 2001. It is owned and operated by the NASDAQ OMX Group, the stock of which was listed on its own stock exchange in 2002, and is monitored by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

With the completed purchase of the Nordic-based operated exchange OMX, following its agreement with Borse Dubai, NASDAQ is poised to capture 67% of the controlling stake in the aforementioned exchange, thereby inching ever closer to taking over the company and creating a trans-atlantic powerhouse.[2] Nasdaq-OMX group as it's now known now controls and operates the NASDAQ stock market in NYC, which is the second largest in the US; in addition, it now operates eight stock exchanges in Europe and also holds 33.3% of the Dubai Stock Exchange. It has a double-listing agreement with OMX, which will render it more effective than the NYSE-Euronext group in attracting new listings.

Dow Jones Industrial Average

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DJI), also called the DJIA, Dow 30, or informally the Dow Jones or The Dow) is one of several stock market indices created by nineteenth century Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow. Dow compiled the index as a way to gauge the performance of the industrial component of America's stock markets. It is the second oldest continuing U.S. market index, after the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which Dow also created.

Today, the average consists of 30 of the largest and most widely held public companies in the United States. The "industrial" portion of the name is largely historical—many of the 30 modern components have little to do with heavy industry. The average is price-weighted. To compensate for the effects of stock splits and other adjustments, it is currently a scaled average, not the actual average of the prices of its component stocks—the sum of the component prices is divided by a divisor, which changes whenever one of the component stocks has a stock split or stock dividend, to generate the value of the index. Since the divisor is currently less than one, the value of the index is higher than the sum of the component prices.

New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), nicknamed the "Big Board," is a New York City-based stock exchange. It is the largest stock exchange in the world by dollar volume and, with 2,764 listed securities, has the second most securities of all stock exchanges. It was the second biggest stock exchange in the world in terms of company listings only next to NASDAQ with 3,200 companies, before Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) of India, consolidated this position as the biggest stock exchange in the world with a company listing of 4,800 as of August 2007. As of December 31, 2006, the combined capitalization of all New York Stock Exchange listed companies was $25.0 trillion.

The NYSE is operated by NYSE Euronext, which was formed by the NYSE's merger with the fully electronic stock exchange Archipelago Holdings and Euronext. The New York Stock Exchange trading floor is located at 11 Wall Street, and is composed of four rooms used for the facilitation of trading. A fifth trading room, located at 30 Broad Street, was closed in February 2007. The main building, located at 18 Broad Street between the corners of Wall Street and Exchange Place, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978.

NYSE Group merged with Euronext, and many of its operations (particularly IT and the trading platform) will be combined with that of the New York Stock Exchange and NYSE Arca.

S&P 500

The S&P 500 is a stock market index containing the stocks of 500 Large-Cap corporations, most of which are American. The index is the most notable of the many indices owned and maintained by Standard & Poor's, a division of McGraw-Hill. S&P 500 is used in reference not only to the index but also to the 500 companies that have their common stock included in the index.

The S&P 500 index forms part of the broader S&P 1500 and S&P Global 1200 stock market indices.

All of the stocks in the index are those of large publicly held companies and trade on the two largest US stock markets, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. After the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 is the most widely watched index of large-cap US stocks. It is considered to be a bellwether for the US economy and is a component of the Index of Leading Indicators. It is often quoted using the symbol SPX or INX, and may be prefixed with a caret (^) or with a dollar sign ($).

Many index funds and exchange-traded funds track the performance of the S&P 500 by holding the same stocks as the index, in the same proportions, and thus attempting to match its performance (before fees and expenses). Partly because of this, a company which has its stock added to the list may see a boost in its stock price as the managers of the mutual funds must purchase that company's stock in order to match the funds' composition to that of the S&P 500 index.

In stock and mutual fund performance charts, the S&P 500 index is often used as a baseline for comparison. The chart will show the S&P 500 index, with the performance of the target stock or fund overlaid.