Question: How do i compare the performance of a stock market against a market index?

(Posted by: ♥jenny♥ on 2010-01-14 03:12:10)

Like what can I talk about? This is for a report and i got no idea where to start. apart from prices going up and down...

Posted by: b2fnow on 2010-01-14, 07:33:22

If you go to Yahoo Finance finance.yahoo.com/ Enter the stock symbol in the box, I'm using MRO (Marathon Oil Co) finance.yahoo.com/ q?s= MRO then click on the small chart of MRO on the right, and you get an intraday chart. finance.yahoo.com/ echarts?s= MRO#symbol= MRO;range= 1d At the bottom of the chart, expand the chart to one year by clicking on the "1Y " tab finance.yahoo.com/ echarts?s= MRO#chart1:symbol= mro;range= 1y;indicator= volume;charttype= line;crosshair= on;ohlcvalues= 0;logscale= on;source= undefined To compare this stock against an index (let's use the DJIA or Dow), click on the "Compare " tab and check the DJI (Dow Jones Industrials) box finance.yahoo.com/ echarts?s= MRO#chart2:symbol= mro;range= 1y;compare= ^dji;indicator= volume;charttype= line;crosshair= on;ohlcvalues= 0;logscale= on;source= undefined Finally you have your comparison of Marathon Oil against a major stock market index. You can see that they track rather nicely until last December, when MRO began to underperform the market. Since the Dow is up 30% and MRO up only 20%, the conclusion here is that MRO underperformed the market by 10% this year.

Posted by: T E on 2010-01-14, 03:16:45

Go to yahoo finance, where u can input a stock symbol vs a stock index

Posted by: Jim L on 2010-01-14, 04:28:58

A stock index is a measure that it established to give people an idea of what is happening in the market as a whole. For example, the Dow Jone Industrial Average is an index of 30 stocks that are believed to represent the market as a whole. The Russell 500 Index is made up of the top 500 market capitalization stocks. These indexes are not all stocks in the market but selected ones that are believed to give an an accurate representation of what the overall market is doing.

Posted by: John S on 2010-01-14, 07:14:56

I just want to add that to have a fair comparison, you need to compare them on a total return basis, ie. taking into account dividends, splits etc. None of the three 3 US major indices are total return index. You may be able to find the S &P 500 total return version on the internet. A stock's return neends to be calculated.