Hi All!

Let's talk Index funds. First of all - there are a TON of indexes out there and this is in no way an inclusive list! I'm just going to mention the big ones.

First off, I'd like to talk about what we mean when we say large, mid and small market cap. It is simply the size of the company, how much that company is worth in the stock market. A large cap would be like Apple or Google. A mid cap would be like American Eagle or Avis. A small cap would be like EventBrite or Denny's Restaurants.

Now on to some of the top indexes!

Large Cap:

S&P 500: The largest 500 companies in the United States.

Russell 1000: The top 1000 companies in the United States. 

Nasdaq 100: Largest US and International Stocks traded on the Nasdaq. (Nasdaq is known for a lot of technology companies.)

Dow Jones Industrial: Top 30 US companies. 

Mid Cap:

S&P 400: The bottom 400 companies in the S&P 500.

Russell Mid Cap: The Russell Index is composed of 3000 US companies. The mid cap is the middle portion of the Russell Index.

Small Cap: 

Russell 2000: The bottom 2000 US stocks in the Russell 3000.

There is also something called a Total Market Index the Wilshire 5000 which follows ALL the US stocks. Currently that is around 3,800 stocks.

So we all know about "eggs in one basket" right? So it's probably a good idea to diversify and invest globally!

International Index Funds:

EAFE: This fund covers large cap European, Australia, Asia and Far East stocks. It does NOT include India, China or Brazil.

DOW Jones World Stock Index: This covers 80% of all the large cap stocks in the World and includes the Pacific, Europe, Canada, Mexico and the US.

Global DOW: The top 150 companies in the world.

There are a LOT more International indexes available so take a look and see what appeals to you!

See You Later!