Financial Terms Glossary
The most important financial terms - with simple and concise explanations.
Index
An index is somewhat like a barometer of the stock market. It reflects the performance of a large number of securities traded on an exchange. The best-known indices are stock indices, for example the S&P 500 or the DAX. There are different types of indices such as price and performance indices. Price indices only reflect the price changes of the underlying shares. Whereas, performance indices also include dividends in the index performance. The DAX is the most prominent stock index in Germany and is a performance index consisting of the 40 most important shares on the German stock market. Indices also exist for other asset classes such as bonds or commodities.