Economics market data ?

Question

FTSE 100 -42.6

5454.8

Closed

DAX +3.81

6446.02

Closed

Dow Jones +43.97

11659.9

Closed

Nikkei +62.61

13019.41

Closed

Okie, the figures I've just pulled you up are from the guardian's finance section.

What does it mean when it says "closed"?

What does it mean when it adds or loses more points?

Does the particular markets that have more points signify that they are better economies or stock exchanges?

Anyone care to explain this basic economics?

Cheers.

Answer 1

What you have are indexes for particular stock market (Nikkei = Japan).  Also what it shows are the closing index price for the day.  It will be hard to judge an economic performance based on a single "day" event since stock market performance on a day to day basis can be affected by numerous factors (political, weather, portfolio allocation, negative sentiment etc..)

Stock market does reflect economic trend.  What I heard is that the Stock Market has a 3 months lead time in reflecting economic trend.  The market will factor in the projected economic performance (vice versa).

Although stock market performance can be used to compare economic performance among countries you are in better position if you stick with traditional economic data like GDP,GNP,CPI etc in comparing country performance.

Answer 2

When the paper says the markets closed, that's just the final value the stock market took when the bell rung for the end of trading that day. Trading occurs between 8am and 4.30pm. So at 4.30pm yesterday the FTSE 100 finished on 5454.8.

     When the FTSE 100 adds more points, it means the total value of the shares of the 100 companies listed has increased on average. So whilst some companies share prices may fall, this has been outweighed by the increase in the value of some other companies shares. The opposite is true if the FTSE 100 loses points.

     Stock markets do not signify whether an economy is doing well. Just because the stock market is losing value it does not mean the economy is doing poorly. It is just a sign that traders are less confident over the future of the economy. And just because the Nikkei has a higher value than the FTSE it does not mean it's a better stock market. Stock market values are just index numbers(See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_index... So in the case of the FTSE 100's base year/day was the 3rd January 1984, and it began at a value of 1000. So today the value of the top 100 shares is 5 times greater than it was in 1984. This is in contrast to the Nikkei whose base year is 7th September 1950. This helps explain why the Nikkei has a greater value.

Hope that helps

Answer 3

When it's closed, the stock market in question is literally closed and not dealing.

The stock market price is an index which is calculated over stocks dealt at that stock exchange. When the prices rise, the index rises.