A commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products, such as cocoa, fruit and sugar. Hard commodities are mined, such as gold and oil. Futures contracts are the oldest way of investing in commodities. Commodity markets can include physical trading and derivatives trading using spot prices, forwards, futures, and options on futures. Farmers have used a simple form of derivative trading in the commodity market for centuries for price risk management.
The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of December 31, 2020, more than $5.4 trillion was invested in assets tied to the performance of the index.
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund and exchange-traded product, i.e. they are traded on stock exchanges. ETFs are similar in many ways to mutual funds, except that ETFs are bought and sold from other owners throughout the day on stock exchanges whereas mutual funds are bought and sold from the issuer based on their price at day's end. An ETF holds assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies, futures contracts, and/or commodities such as gold bars, and generally operates with an arbitrage mechanism designed to keep it trading close to its net asset value, although deviations can occasionally occur. Most ETFs are index funds: that is, they hold the same securities in the same proportions as a certain stock market index or bond market index. The most popular ETFs in the U.S. replicate the S&P 500, the total market index, the NASDAQ-100 index, the price of gold, the "growth" stocks in the Russell 1000 Index, or the index of the largest technology companies. With the exception of non-transparent actively managed ETFs, in most cases, the list of stocks that each ETF owns, as well as their weightings, is posted daily on the website of the issuer. The largest ETFs have annual fees of 0.03% of the amount invested, or even lower, although specialty ETFs can have annual fees well in excess of 1% of the amount invested. These fees are paid to the ETF issuer out of dividends received from the underlying holdings or from selling assets.
The Russell 3000 Index is a capitalization-weighted stock market index that seeks to be a benchmark of the entire U.S. stock market. It measures the performance of the 3,000 largest publicly held companies incorporated in America as measured by total market capitalization, and represents approximately 97% of the American public equity market. The index was launched on January 1, 1984, and is maintained by FTSE Russell, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group. The ticker symbol on most systems is ^RUA.
The Russell Midcap Index measures performance of the 800 smallest companies in the Russell 1000 Index. As of 30 November 2022, the stocks of the Russell Midcap Index have a weighted average market capitalization of approximately $22.64 billion, median market capitalization of $9.91 billion, and the market capitalization of the largest company is $54.74 billion. The index, which was launched on November 1, 1991, is maintained by FTSE Russell, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group.
Tokyo Stock Price Index, commonly known as TOPIX, along with the Nikkei 225, is an important stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in Japan, tracking all domestic companies of the exchange's Prime market division. It is calculated and published by the TSE. As of 1 February 2011, there were 1,669 companies listed on the First Section of the TSE, and the market value for the index was ¥197.4 trillion.
The NYSE Arca Tech 100 Index is a price-weighted index composed of common stocks and ADRs of technology-related companies listed on US stock exchanges. The index is maintained by the New York Stock Exchange, but includes stocks that trade on exchanges other than the NYSE. Companies from different industries that produce or deploy innovative technologies to conduct their business are considered for inclusion. Leading companies are selected from several industries, including computer hardware, software, semiconductors, telecommunications, electronics, aerospace and defense, health care equipment, and biotechnology.
The NYSE Arca Oil Index, previously AMEX Oil Index, ticker symbol XOI, is a price-weighted index of the leading companies involved in the exploration, production, and development of petroleum. It measures the performance of the oil industry through changes in the sum of the prices of component stocks. The index was developed with a base level of 125 as of August 27, 1984.
An inverse exchange-traded fund is an exchange-traded fund (ETF), traded on a public stock market, which is designed to perform as the inverse of whatever index or benchmark it is designed to track. These funds work by using short selling, trading derivatives such as futures contracts, and other leveraged investment techniques.
The NYSE Arca Gold BUGS Index is a modified equal dollar weighted index of companies involved in gold mining. BUGS stands for Basket of Unhedged Gold Stocks. It is also referred to by its ticker symbol "HUI". The HUI Index and Philadelphia Gold and Silver Index (XAU) are the two most watched gold indices on the market. The main difference between them is that the HUI Index takes into account only gold producer stocks whereas the XAU Index includes both gold and silver producers. The Gold BUGS Index was designed to provide significant exposure to near term movements in gold prices by including companies that do not hedge their gold production beyond 1.5 years. The HUI Index was developed with a base value of 200.00 as of March 15, 1996. The NYSE Arca Gold BUGS Index currently consists of 15 of the largest and most widely held public gold production companies. Since bottoming in late 2000, HUI went on to be the top-performing US stock sector of the decade, rising by about 1600%.
The S&P SmallCap 600 Index is a stock market index established by Standard & Poor's. It covers roughly the small-cap range of American stocks, using a capitalization-weighted index.
The Russell Top 200 Index measures the performance of the 200 largest companies in the Russell 1000 Index, with a weighted average market capitalization of $186 billion. The median capighkm
The Russell Top 50 Index measures the performance of the largest companies in the Russell 3000 Index. It includes approximately 50 of the largest securities based on a combination of their market cap and current index membership and represents approximately 40% of the total market capitalization of the Russell 3000.
The Russell Microcap Index measures the performance of the microcap segment of the U.S. equity market. It makes up less than 3% of the U.S. equity market. It includes 1,000 of the smallest securities in the Russell 2000 Index based on a combination of their market cap and current index membership and it also includes up to the next 1,000 stocks. As of 31 December 2016, the weighted average market capitalization for a company in the index was $535 million; the median market cap was $228 million. The market cap of the largest company in the index was $3.6 billion.
SPDR Gold Shares is part of the SPDR family of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) managed and marketed by State Street Global Advisors. For a few years, the fund was the second-largest exchange-traded fund in the world, and it was briefly the largest. As of the close of 2014, it dropped out of the top ten.
Invesco PowerShares is an American boutique investment management firm based near Chicago which manages a family of exchange-traded funds or ETFs. The company has been part of Invesco, which markets the PowerShares product, since 2006.
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF trust is an exchange-traded fund which trades on the NYSE Arca under the symbol SPY. SPDR is an acronym for the Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts, the former name of the ETF. It is designed to track the S&P 500 stock market index. This fund is the largest and oldest ETF in the world. SPDR is a trademark of Standard and Poor's Financial Services LLC, a subsidiary of S&P Global. The ETF's CUSIP is 78462F103 and its ISIN is US78462F1030. The trustee of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust is State Street Bank and Trust Company. The fund has a net expense ratio of 0.0945%. The value of one share of the ETF is worth approximately 1/10 of the cash S&P 500's current level. On December 1, 2021, the 30-Day average daily volume range for the past 5 years was 82.45 million shares, making it the ETF with the largest trading volume. The sponsor is SPDR Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Stock Exchange LLC. Dividends are distributed quarterly, and are based on the accumulated stock dividends held in trust, less any expenses of the trust. The trust seeks to provide investment results that, before expenses, correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the S&P 500 index.
