FTSE 100 and Dow Jones

[cocopops]

Hi All
Can anyone please explain to me in laymans terms what the above means?

[terambulan]

Wish I knew but ignorance is bliss! Its to do with stocks & shares but since I don't have any I dont care. The FTSE is UK stock & shares. Dow Jones in USA s & s. Banks, Building Soc etc invest in the Company shares to make profits to lend us. As the shares go up/down so do our loan exes.

Something like that.........

[cocopops]

Thanks for your explanation, I guess I should really know by now, but just kept overlooking what it all meant.

Thanks again, that was easy for me to understand.

[WoWo]

FTSE 100 - Financial TImes Stock Exchange Index.

The 100 part is that it keeps track of 100 major UK companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, these 100 are pretty much a barometer of the current trends in the market. There is also a 250 which lists the next 250 companies and a 350 which is the combination of the other two.

The FTSE group is an independant group created by the Financial Times and the London Stock exchange.

It's basically a standard measure to tell how well the stock market is doing on a given day. So if the index is 5000 one day and 4000 the next it generally means the share prices have gone down.

The Dow is the American equivalent.