Asked by j

Market performance in the United States is tracked using stock
, which use formulas to calculate price changes.

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
The missing term is "stock indices" (also spelled "stock indexes").

Brief explanation:
- Stock indices use formulas to aggregate the prices or market values of a group of stocks into a single number that tracks market performance.
- Common calculation methods:
- Price-weighted (e.g., Dow Jones Industrial Average): index = (sum of component stock prices) / divisor. The divisor is adjusted for splits and other corporate actions.
- Market-cap-weighted (e.g., S&P 500, NASDAQ Composite): index ∝ sum(price_i × shares_outstanding_i). Practically, index level = (sum of market caps) / divisor (or base market cap) × base index value.
- Equal-weighted: components are given equal weight (often averaged or rebalanced regularly).

Examples: DJIA (price-weighted), S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite (market-cap-weighted).