The S&P/ASX 200 Index is the benchmark institutional investable stock market index in Australia, comprising the 200 largest stocks by float-adjusted market capitalization. It is one of a number of indices published by S&P Dow Jones on Australian markets (called the S&P/ASX family of indices), but is considered the main benchmark of that grouping.

The Euro Stoxx 50 is a stock index formed by the 50 stocks with the highest liquidity and trading in European markets. Founded in 1998, the Euro Stoxx 50 index gathers the shares of companies in 11 European countries.

The Euro Stoxx 50 index is made up of the index provider Deutsche Börse, a company that belongs to the German stock exchange. The composition of the Euro Stoxx 50 is made up of companies that belong exclusively to the Euro Zone. That is, the shares are in single currency, the euro.

France 40, or the CAC 40 Index, is a benchmark French stock market index. The index represents a capitalization-weighted measure of the 40 most significant stocks among the 100 largest market caps on the Euronext Paris (formerly the Paris Bourse). It is one of the main national indices of the pan-European stock exchange group Euronext alongside Brussels’ BEL20, Lisbon’s PSI-20 and Amsterdam’s AEX.

The Germany 30 is a popular European index with investors due to the historically strong performance of companies on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Founded in 1988, the Germany 30 is ordered by market capitalisation and is managed by Deutsche Börse.

Companies which make up the Germany 30 index include some of Germany’s biggest companies and brands which have global significance like Adidas, Allianz, BMW, Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Lufthansa, E.ON, SAP, Siemens and Volkswagen Group.

As with other major global Indices it is easy to see the diversity in the different stocks which make up the Germany 30, which is good news for investors looking for medium to longer term trading opportunities with less risk of extreme volatility.

The UK 100 is one of our most popular Indices markets and has been in operation since 1984. Managed by the FTSE Group, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange, the UK 100 index includes stocks from some of the country’s best loved companies. Household names comprising the UK 100 include companies from a wide range of sectors like Barclays, Burberry, Experian, Glencore, HSBC, Just Eat, Royal Mail, Tesco and Vodafone Group.
Because the UK 100 is made up of such a diverse range of companies across a variety of sectors it is less sensitive to factors which could impact individual stocks more disproportionately.

For example, a big economic data release or a sudden change in the value of the pound could adversely immediately affect the prices of companies in sectors like banking, while the same news may not impact companies like exporting.
Wild fluctuations and sharp volatility are therefore less likely when trading Indices like the UK 100 than when trading individual Shares.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (known commonly as the S&P 500) is an index with 500 of the top companies in the U.S. Stocks are chosen for the index primarily by capitalization but the constituent committee also considers other factors including liquidity, public float, sector classification, financial viability, and trading history.

The S&P 500 Index represents approximately 80% of the total value of the U.S. stock market. In general, the S&P 500 Index gives a good indication of movement in the U.S. market as a whole.

Indexes are usually market-weighted or price-weighted. The S&P 500 Index is a market-weighted index (also referred to as capitalization-weighted). Therefore, every stock in the index is represented in proportion to its total market capitalization. In other words, if the total market value of all 500 companies in the S&P 500 drops by 10%, the value of the index also drops by 10%.

The Spain 35 (IBEX 35) is a benchmark tradable index that tracks the performance of the top 35 stocks listed on the Spanish Stock Market. Launched in 1992 as a free-float capitalisation-weighted index, it has no top weighting limit for one constituent unlike many other stock market indices.

The IBEX 35 is calculated by the Spanish company Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME) and is reviewed on a quarterly basis. At each review, the 35 companies with the highest trading volume in euros over the preceding six months are selected for inclusion in the index, subject to certain stipulations.

Hang Seng China 50 Index is a pan-China stock market index to represent the top 50 China-based companies in the stock exchanges of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen, which covers A share (shares circulated in mainland China), H share (shares circulated in Hong Kong from the mainland China incorporated company), Red Chip (shares circulated in Hong Kong from the companies incorporated outside mainland China with state-owned background) and P Chip (shares circulated in Hong Kong from the companies with private background)

The Nikkei is short for Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average, the leading and most-respected index of Japanese stocks. It is a price-weighted index composed of Japan’s top 225 blue-chip companies traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The Nikkei is equivalent to the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) Index in the United States.

The NASDAQ index is the third major US stock index and was originally launched in 1971. It, is comprised of 100 major companies across a wide variety of sectors with a focus on tech.

The NASDAQ index includes big names like Apple, Tesla, Cisco, Seagate, Intel, Adobe, Activision Blizzard, NVIDIA, Netflix and more.

While the NASDAQ is primarily dominated by the tech sector, it also boasts companies from industries like aviation, consumer services and healthcare.

Wall Street is the colloquial name given to the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, which was launched in 1885. Now run by Standard & Poor’s and Dow Jones, the Wall Street index remains incredibly popular with investors for its wealth of trading opportunities. Some of the iconic brands and companies comprising the Wall Street index include; Apple, Boeing, Caterpillar, Coca-Cola, Intel, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Nike, Visa and Walt Disney.
Like the UK 100, the sheer diversity of sectors represented in the Wall Street index means that the index is less sensitive to extreme volatility that might otherwise affect price movements of a single share.