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Madhav Ganesan
Madhav Ganesan

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Introduction to US Stock Market

Stock Market

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE):

  • The largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization.
  • It houses many blue-chip companies like Coca-Cola, IBM, and ExxonMobil.

Nasdaq Stock Market:

  • It is known for its high concentration of technology companies.
  • It features companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Famous Indexes

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) (The Dow)

It is composed of 30 large, publicly traded companies

S&P 500 (Standard & Poor's 500)

  • It tracks 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the US.
  • It represents about 80% of the total US stock market capitalization.

Russell 2000

  • It represents 2,000 small-cap companies.
  • It tracks the performance of smaller companies in the US economy.

Nasdaq Composite

It includes more than 3,000 stocks listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

NYSE Composite

  • It represents all stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange
  • It includes a mix of US and international companies.

Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index

  • It covers all publicly traded U.S. stocks
  • It is one of the broadest measure of the U.S. equity market

Key Terms

Fractional Shares:

It is less than one full share of a company. Instead of buying 1 whole share, you can buy 0.5, 0.25, or even 0.001 of a share.

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