How do non-U.S. markets compare with the U.S. market?

Question

Beginner question here: Ok, the U.S. has the DOW, which gives you an idea of how major blue-chip companies are doing. It is also a pretty good gauge of the overall market. (with exceptions....)

What is the equivalent of the DOW in foreign markets, and are most of them also in a recession?

-Newbie to investing

Answer 1

hong kong has the hang seng which is about 30% off it's highs

shanghai is over 50% off it's highs

japan has nikkei which is down around 25%

Answer 2

Most countries have a stock market, but they are very different from the US markets. Most of them a much less liquid - that is, they don't trade as many shares, so sometimes it is hard to buy or sell at the stated market price.

European markets such as the FTSE (UK), DAX (Germany), the CAC (France) have performed better than the US has recently.

This is especially true for US investors, because of the benefit of currency exchange. US investors generally have to sell US dollars and buy Euros in order to buy European stock markets. Because the Euro has continued to strengthen against the US dollar, money that US investors have placed in European stock markets have benefited twice - once by the relative outperformance of foreign markets, and once by the outperformance of the Euro versus the US dollar.

there are easy ways to invest in foreign stock markets. Go to www.Vanguard.com for low-fee NO LOAD mutual funds that allow you to invest in foreign stock markets.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Here are the indexes in other parts of the world.

http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=a...