About US Indexes

 I you take the main index groups that cover US economy you will find that S&P group of indexes is the most popular group and securities that track S&P indexes are the most traded ones. The group of Standard & Poors indexes is one of the most widely used and most recognized not just in the US but over the world. The other main groups of indexes are: DOW, NASDAQ, Russell, NYSE and AMEX indexes.

Among Russell indexes you may see only one index that attracts the decent number of investors and analysts and this is the Russell 2000 index (^RUT), mainly because of trading the Russell 2000 emini futures. The NYSE group of indexes has one popular index as well. The NYSE Composite index (^NYA) is considered as a barometer of US economy and was used by analysts to define the health of the US stock market. There are others NYSE and Russell indexes, yet, only two indexes mentioned above could be considered popular among the investors.

There are several Amex indexes that could be considered popular. Even if the Amex Composite index (^XAX) is used not as often in the analysis as NYSE Composite Index, such indexes as AMEX Gold (^HUI), Amex Oil (^XOI) indexes are used widely and they would push the group of Amex indexes ahead of the NYSE indexes.

The NASDAQ and DOW indexes are far ahead of the Amex indexes. They could be seen equally popular. The DOW group has three very popular products: Dow Jones Industrials (^DJI), Dow Jones Transport (^DJT) and Dow Jones Utilities (^DJU) indexes. The NASDAQ group has only two products that are as popular as DOW main indexes and those indexes are: the NASDAQ 100 (^NDX) and NASDAQ Composite (^COMP) Indexes. However, NASDAQ group has a row of indexes that are less popular, yet still very widely used. Some of them are Nasdaq 100 Financial index (^IXF), NASDAQ Q-50 index (^NXTQ), NASDAQ Other Financial (^OFIN). After the NASADAQ acquired Philadelphia Stock Exchange indexes, the PHLX Semiconductors index (^SOX) could be added to the group of the NASDAQ popular indexes as well.

Now, when we come to the Standard and Poor's group of indexes we may see row of very popular indexes that are used to analyze and describe US economy and at the same time are used as a trading vehicle. The S&P 500 index (^SPX) is the most used index in this group. It is used to describe US economy and at the same time SPY (S&P 500 index tracking stock) is the most traded stock, SP emini futures (S&P 500 emini futures) are the most traded eminis all over the world. SPX and SPY options are very popular as well.

The S&P 500 index is not the only index that is popular from the group of the Standard & Poor's indexes. Such indexes as the S&P 500 Financial index (^SPS), the S&P 100 index (^OEX), Mid-Cap S&P 400 index (^MID), Small Cap S&P 600 index (^SML) are very popular and very actively traded.