IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedbne/y1998inovp25-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Primer on U.S. stock price indices

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Fortune

Abstract

The measurement of the \"average\" price of common stocks is a matter of widespread interest. Investors want to know how \"the market\" is doing, and to be able to compare their returns with a meaningful benchmark. Money managers often have their compensation tied to performance, typically measured by comparing their results to a benchmark portfolio, so they and their clients are interested in the benchmark portfolio's returns. And policymakers want to judge the potential for sudden adjustments in stock prices when differences from \"fundamental value emerge. ; This article discusses some of the issues in constructing and interpreting stock price indices. The author focuses on the most widely used indices: the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Standard & Poor's 500, the Russell 2000, the NASDAQ Composite, and the Wilshire 5000. Each of these indices is intended to be a benchmark portfolio for a different segment of the universe of common stocks. He compares the movements in the five popular indices over the last two decades and examines the correlations between the returns on each of the stock price indices. His findings suggest that the Dow 30, the S&P 500, and the Wilshire 5000 are similar and capture the movements in a different segment of the market than do the NASDAQ Composite and the Russell 2000.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Fortune, 1998. "Primer on U.S. stock price indices," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 25-40.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:1998:i:nov:p:25-40
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/neer/neer1998/neer698b.htm
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/neer/neer1998/neer698b.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fama, Eugene F, et al, 1969. "The Adjustment of Stock Prices to New Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 10(1), pages 1-21, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cheng Jiang, 2018. "The Asymmetric Effects of Monetary Policy on Stock Market," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 8(03), pages 1-27, September.
    2. Richard W. Kopcke & Matt Rutledge, 2004. "Stock prices and the equity premium during the recent bull and bear markets," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, pages 63-85.
    3. Peter Fortune, 1999. "Are stock returns different over weekends? a jump diffusion analysis of the \"weekend effect\"," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Sep, pages 3-19.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David M. Cutler & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988. "The Costs of Conflict Resolution and Financial Distress: Evidence from the Texaco-Pennzoil Litigation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(2), pages 157-172, Summer.
    2. Syamsul Idul Adha & A. Sakir, 2021. "Effect of Minimum Tick Size Policy on Price Efficiency and Execution Cost," Capital Markets Review, Malaysian Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 29-41.
    3. Corbet, Shaen & Larkin, Charles & McMullan, Caroline, 2020. "The impact of industrial incidents on stock market volatility," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    4. Oxelheim, Lars & Rafferty, Michael, 2005. "On the static efficiency of secondary bond markets," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 117-135, April.
    5. Rolf Bühner & Jörg Digmayer, 2003. "Aktienmarktreaktionen auf die Ankündigungen von Spin-offs und Sell-offs," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 55(7), pages 657-677, November.
    6. DAVID E. ALLEN & MICHAEL McALEER & ROBERT J. POWELL & ABHAY K. SINGH, 2018. "Non-Parametric Multiple Change Point Analysis Of The Global Financial Crisis," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(02), pages 1-23, June.
    7. Kanis Saengchote & Voraprapa Nakavachara & Yishuang Xu, 2023. "Capitalising the Network Externalities of New Land Supply in the Metaverse," PIER Discussion Papers 203, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Zbigniew Korzeb, 2016. "The influence of currency risk upon the market value of commercial banks operating in the Polish banking sector," "e-Finanse", University of Information Technology and Management, Institute of Financial Research and Analysis, vol. 11(4), pages 57-63, March.
    9. Roger P. Bey, 1983. "The Market Model As An Appropriate Description Of The Stochastic Process Generating Security Returns," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 6(4), pages 275-288, December.
    10. Marmora, Paul, 2022. "Does monetary policy fuel bitcoin demand? Event-study evidence from emerging markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    11. Frankfurter, George M. & Wood, Bob Jr., 2002. "Dividend policy theories and their empirical tests," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 111-138.
    12. Morrison Handley-Schachler & Steven Li, 2005. "International Effects of the Andersen Accounting and Auditing Scandals: Some Evidence from the US, UK and Australian Stock Markets," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 202, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology.
    13. Ye, Dezhu & Liu, Shasha & Kong, Dongmin, 2013. "Do efforts on energy saving enhance firm values? Evidence from China's stock market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 360-369.
    14. Zhang, Wenwen & Cao, Shuo & Zhang, Xuan & Qu, Xuefeng, 2023. "COVID-19 and stock market performance: Evidence from the RCEP countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 717-735.
    15. Denise M. Keele & Susan DeHart, 2011. "Partners of USEPA Climate Leaders: an Event Study on Stock Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(8), pages 485-497, December.
    16. Goel, Sanjay & Cagle, Seth & Shawky, Hany, 2017. "How vulnerable are international financial markets to terrorism? An empirical study based on terrorist incidents worldwide," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 120-132.
    17. Lisa Leinert, 2012. "Does the Oil Price Adjust Optimally to Oil Field Discoveries?," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 12/169, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    18. Carol Alexander & Anca Dimitriu, 2003. "Equity Indexing: Conitegration and Stock Price Dispersion: A Regime Switiching Approach to market Efficiency," ICMA Centre Discussion Papers in Finance icma-dp2003-02, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
    19. Walter, Andreas & Eisele, Florian, 2003. "Kurswertreaktionen auf die Ankündigung von Going Private : Transaktionen am deutschen Kapitalmarkt," Tübinger Diskussionsbeiträge 274, University of Tübingen, School of Business and Economics.
    20. Wohlfarth, Paul, 2018. "Measuring the impact of monetary policy attention on global asset volatility using search data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 15-18.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:1998:i:nov:p:25-40. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Spozio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbbous.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.