market index
A group of stocks or securities chosen to represent a particular market or sector, used to track how that market is performing.
Where it is explained in full
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Words beside it
- Bear market
A fall of 20 percent or more from a high. They happen every few years and end every time so far.
- Bull market
A long rise. Feels permanent from the inside.
- Consumer Price Index
A number the government publishes that tracks how much everyday things like food and gas cost over time. When that number goes up it means your money buys a little less than it used to.
- direct indexing
A way to own stocks by purchasing the individual companies in an index yourself rather than buying a single fund that holds all of them.
- Index
A published list of investments, like the 500 largest US companies, used as a benchmark and copied by index funds.
- Index fund
A fund that holds the components of a published index in the same proportions, changing only when the index does.
- indexed annuity
An indexed annuity is an annuity whose growth is tied to a market index like the S and P 500, but with limits on how much you can gain or lose. It sits between a fixed annuity and a variable one.
- market
The market is the overall system where buyers and sellers trade things like bonds and shares, and prices move up or down based on how many people want to buy or sell at any given moment. You do not visit it like a store but it shapes the price of almost every financial product you might own.
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