US Indices & Stock Codes - General Info

[RichKid]

This thread might prove to be a good reference point for those conducting some initial research on US markets.

For example, I often see the NASDAQ Composite Index quoted on news programmes but I also note the NASDAQ-100 index is of interest to traders. NB I'm not referring to index futures here. Maybe it's similar to the XAO v the XJO? Anyone care to comment?

This page from Bigcharts.com has a summary of various indices and symbols but I note that some of the symbols vary from others that I have seen: http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/markets/indexes.asp

For example, Yahoo Finance shows some variance: http://finance.yahoo.com/indices?

I'm trying to pin down the official symbol and the most important and liquid markets for a trader to concentrate on in the US. I will post more info as it comes to hand. Quality is better than quantity here as there is so much info about US markets out there that it's easy to get confused. (Please excuse me if I've made any errors here).

Eg Symbols:
Nasdaq Composite- COMPX
Nasdaq 100- NDX

PS. For general quotes and info, Bloomberg and MSN MoneyCentral have been useful to me so far. http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/index.html?Intro=intro_markets
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/home.asp

 

[Timmy]

I have used the market summary page on Stockcharts.com for a quick view on what is going on, and I think the codes provided on the page are correct (codes are on the left of the page just to the left of the commonly used name for the indices).

Is this the sort of thing you are talking about RK?

 

[wildkactus]

I don't know if this is what you are after,

http://quotes.nasdaq.com/aspx/marketindices.aspx

This is the quote page for the indicies from the nasdaq website.

 

[RichKid]

Thanks guys- that's exactly what I was after!

Wildkactus, that official Nasdaq page is ideal confirmation. Timmy, I've been to stockcharts before but didn't realise they had so much detail, an excellent site for chartists, I like the multiple chart display.

I've also narrowed the range of ETF's as follows:

S&P500 (SPY)- SPY for longs, SDS ('leveraged') for shorts

Nasdaq 100 (NDX)- QQQQ for longs, QID ('leveraged') for shorts

Gold (Comex Gold)- UAI or GLD for longs (not sure of the best one, there a few gold etf's)

Other avenues for shorting: eto's (buy puts on the long etf's or buy calls on the short etf's), or short sell stock.

There's a nice wiki summary here of global ETF's- a good starting point but I prefer to verify wiki info independently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Exchange_Traded_Funds#Leveraged_.26_Short_ETFs

Also found this for AMEX ETF's, straight from the horse's mouth, interesting phraseology, lol:

The American Stock Exchange. Where ETFs were born, raised, and spend all of their quality time. http://www.amex.com/?href=/equities/listCmp/EqLCDetQuote.jsp?Product_Symbol=SRS

I suppose we'll have to start an American ETF thread soon <edit- just did that, see the thread here>.