Technical Analysis: Power Tools for Active Investors

The “Internal” as Opposed to the “External” Stock Market

Financial news reports tend to focus on gains and losses recorded by a selective group of popularly followed stock market indices. These include the Dow Industrials,with 30 issues, unequally weighted (higher-priced issues have a larger influence, on the index); theStandard & Poor’s 500 Index, with 500 stocks (weighted by capitalization so that the index is unequally weighted, with larger companies more influential than smaller companies); the Nasdaq Composite Index,with approximately 3,500 separate issues (heavily weighted by capitalization so that at times perhaps only a dozen or so issues carry a very disproportionate effect); and theNew York Stock Exchange Index, which includes all ...