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Stocks & Indexes
Indexes, earnings, sectors, dividends, and valuation — how equity markets are measured and read.
Indexes
Stock Indexes: The Complete Guide
A stock index compresses an entire market — sometimes hundreds or thousands of companies — into a single number, letting investors and economists… · 8 min read
How Stock Markets Work
A stock is a slice of ownership in a company, and a stock market is the continuous auction where buyers and sellers agree on a price for those slices… · 5 min read
Price-Weighted vs Cap-Weighted Indexes
Index weighting determines how much each stock influences an index's daily moves. Price-weighted indexes like the Dow Jones Industrial Average give… · 6 min read
Global Stock Markets: A Tour
Global stock markets follow the sun, opening in Asia, then Europe, then the Americas, with each session picking up sentiment from the one before.… · 5 min read
Company Events
Earnings Season, Explained
Earnings season happens four times a year when publicly traded companies report their quarterly financial results, including earnings per share and… · 6 min read
Dividends: Yield, Dates and What They Signal
A dividend is a cash payment a company makes to its shareholders, usually expressed as a yield — the annual dividend divided by the current share… · 6 min read
Stock Splits and IPOs
A stock split divides existing shares into more pieces at a lower price each, leaving the company's total value unchanged — more shares, same pie. An… · 5 min read
Valuation & Sectors
Stock Sectors: Cyclicals, Defensives and the Map
Stock sectors divide the market into eleven industry families — from technology and financials to utilities and real estate — so investors and… · 6 min read
Valuation Basics: P/E, EPS and Market Cap
Valuation basics in stocks come down to three numbers: market cap (what the whole company is worth at today's price), earnings per share (the profit… · 7 min read
Bull Markets, Bear Markets and Corrections
A bull market is a sustained rise of 20% or more from a recent low; a bear market is a decline of 20% or more from a recent peak; and a correction is… · 6 min read