Get to know the most popular financial markets

Get Insight in to the Most Popular Markets

Indexes

Indexes represent the average performance of a group of shares, usually the largest shares in a market ranked by total value. Here’s a list of the most popular indexes.

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Dow Jones

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, commonly just called the ‘Dow’, was historically the benchmark for US stock performance

S&P 500

The Standard & Poors 500 index is one of the most popular indexes used for trading or benchmarking the US equities market

FTSE 100

The FTSE 100 Index is the most widely followed UK stock market index comprised of the top 100 UK listed companies

Nasdaq 100

The NASDAQ 100 Index was launched in the USA in 1971, and it remains the largest electronic equities trading market in the world

ASX 200

The S&P ASX 200 index tracks the performance of share prices in Australia

FTSE 250

The FTSE 250 tracks the largest 250 companies listed on the UK’s London Stock Exchange, after those in the FTSE 100

DAX

The Deutsche Aktien IndeX is the benchmark stock market index for Germany

VIX Index

The VIX Index is often referred to as the Fear Index, because it is a gauge of implied volatility of the S&P 500

Nikkei 225

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index is the benchmark stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange

Euro Stoxx 50

The Euro Stoxx 50 is a benchmark for the performance of the 50 largest companies listed on stock exchanges in the Eurozone

Equities

Shares or stocks representing an ownership interest. These can be held in private or publicly traded companies, available on the stock market.

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Unilever shares start to rally after Rotterdam debacle

Whitbread’s Costa sale awaits shareholder approval

Greggs results – more bad news ahead for ailing bakery?

Tesco shares: will it be more good news from Dave Lewis?

Investing in the North American marijuana stocks boom

Sirius US$3.5bn tie-up with Pandora hits shares

What’s next for Next shares?

Sky shares steady as auction approaches

Commodities

Commodities are raw materials or primary agricultural products that can be bought and sold, such as wheat, copper, coffee, silver and platinum.

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Crude Oil

Crude oil is the world’s most heavily traded commodity by investors, funds and oil producers and refiners

Silver

Silver is recognised as an efficient weapon against fluctuating share prices and, like gold, a safe haven investment

Copper

As an excellent conductor of electricity and electrical equipment, electronics, contruction and transport account for most of copper’s overall usage

Platinum

Platinum is a pale-coloured precious metal typically traded together with gold, silver and palladium

Coffee

The aromatic coffee bean is bought and sold by roasters, investors and speculators on commodities exchanges across the globe

Wheat

Wheat is the one of the most widely grown grains and the staple food of many countries.

Cocoa

Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia produce two thirds of the world’s cocoa and of the three countries, Ivory Coast is by far the most significant producer

Sugar

About two thirds of the world’s sugar production is grown from sugar cane, a plant which loves the warm weather and is grown abundantly in Brazil, India, China and the Southern US

Gold

For hundreds of years, investing in gold has been the preferred market choice in times of uncertainty, a substitute way of keeping money

Commodities

A commodities futures contract is traded on major derivatives exchanges, and enables the buyer to theoretically take delivery of that commodity from one of the exchange’s warehouses.

Currencies

Currency Trading is the act of buying and selling the different currencies of the world. The Foreign Exchange (FX) market allows you to trade currencies in volume.

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Bitcoin

Bitcoin is one of the first and most widely recognised of the so-called ‘cryptocurrencies’

Hong Kong Dollar

The Hong Kong Dollar has survived the territory’s return to China in 1997 and remains one of the top 10 most traded currencies in the world

Canadian Dollar

The Canadian Dollar (CAD), also known by veteran traders as the Loonie because of the aquatic bird on the one dollar coin, is one of the two main resource-driven currencies

Swiss Franc

The Swiss Franc has long been considered a currency for institutional investors to buy when they need to get out of riskier assets, particularly during times of financial crisis

Euro

After the US dollar, the euro is the most widely traded foreign currency, and the EUR/USD currency pair is arguably the most traded on any given day

New Zealand Dollar

Often referred to as the Kiwi by currency traders, it has been a popular currency to trade in recent years on account of the strength of the New Zealand economy

Japanese Yen

The Japanese yen is one of the most popular trades in the global currency markets, and considered one of the currency ‘majors’

Currencies

The most traded currencies in the world account for US$1.5 trillion changing hands every day

US Dollar

The US dollar or ‘greenback’ remains the de facto reserve currency of the world, despite the trials and tribulations of the American economy in 2007-2009