Opening of the main index of the Vienna Stock Exchange on February 24

Day without changes for the ATXwhich begins the session of Friday February 24 with a variation of the 0.23%until the 3,474.61 points, after the start of the opening session. In relation to the variations of this day compared to the previous days, the ATX chain two consecutive positive days.

a stock market index is an indicator that shows how the value of a set of assets is changingfor which it collects data from different companies or sectors of a market fragment.

These indicators are mainly used by the exchanges of each country and each of them can be integrated by signatures with different specificities like having a similar market capitalization or belonging to the same type of industry, moreover, there are some indices that only consider a handful of stocks to determine their value or others that consider hundreds of stocks.

Stock market indices serve as indicator of confidence in stock market, business confidence, health of national and global economy and stock investment performance and shares of an entity. Generally, if investors lack confidence, stock prices will tend to fall.

They are also working to measure the performance of an asset manager and they allow investors to have comparisons between profitability and risk; measure the opportunities of a financial asset or create portfolios.

These types of indicators began to be used at the end of the 19th century after the journalist Charles H. Dow. carefully observed how the stock prices of companies tended to rise or fall together, so he created two indices: one containing the 20 largest railway companies (since this was the largest industry in the world). era), as well as 12 shares of other types of companies

Each stock index has its own calculation method, but the main component is the market capitalization of each company that incorporates it. This is obtained by multiplying the value of the share on the corresponding stock market by the total number of shares that are on the market.

Listed companies are required to present a balance sheet of its composition. This report must be published every three or six months, as the case may be.

Reading a stock market index also means taking care of its evolution over time. New indices always start with a fixed value based on stock prices on their start date, but not everyone follows this method. So it can be confusing.

Between the major US stock indices is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, better known as the Dow Jones, made up of 30 companies. Likewise, the S&P500, which includes 500 of the largest companies on the New York Stock Exchange. Finally, it should be mentioned the Nasdaq 100which includes 100 of the largest non-financial companies.

On the other hand, the most important indices of Europe are the Euro Stoxx 50, which covers the 50 largest companies in the euro area. On the other hand, the DAX 30, the main German index containing the most outstanding companies on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange; there FTSE100 the London Stock Exchange; he CAC 40 of the Paris Stock Exchange; and the IBEX 35of the Spanish stock exchange.

In the asian continentwe have the Nikki 225, made up of the 225 largest companies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. There is also the SSE composite index, is seen as China’s preeminent, made up of the most important companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Also, it is worth mentioning the Hang Seung Index in Hong Kong and the KOSPI in South Korea.

As it concerns Latin Americayou have the IPCwhich contains the 35 most prestigious companies on the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV). At least a third of them belong to tycoon Carlos Slim.

Another is the Bovespa, composed of the 50 most important companies of the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange; he Merval from Argentina; he IPSA From Chile; he MSCI COLCAP Columbia; he IBC of Caracas, made up of 6 companies from Venezuela.

In addition, there are other types of global stock indices such as the MSCI Latin Americawhich includes the 137 most important companies from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.

Likewise, there is MSCI World, which brings together 1,600 companies from 23 developed countries; he MSCI Emerging Markets, made up of more than 800 companies from developing countries; and the S&P Global 100made up of the 100 most powerful multinational corporations on the entire planet.