Dollar Index (USDX)
It is an index (or measure) of the value of the United States dollar relative to a basket of foreign currencies.
It is a weighted geometric mean of the dollar's value compared only with;
• Euro (EUR), 58.6% weight
• Japanese Yen (JPY) 12.6% weight
• Pound sterling (GBP), 11.9% weight
• Canadian dollar (CAD), 9.1% weight
• Swedish krona (SEK), 4.2% weight and
• Swiss franc (CHF) 3.6% weight
USDX goes up when the US dollar gains "strength" (value) when compared to other currencies.
USDX started in March 1973, soon after the dismantling of the Bretton Woods system. At its start, the value of the US Dollar Index was 100.000. It has since traded as high as 148.1244 in February 1985, and as low as 70.698 on March 16, 2008.
The makeup of the "basket" has been altered only once, when several European currencies were subsumed by the Euro at the start of 1999.
USDX is updated whenever US Dollar markets are open, which is from Sunday evening New York time (early Monday morning Asia time) for 24 hours a day to late Friday afternoon New York time.
USDX can be traded as a futures contract on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). It is also available in exchange traded funds (ETFs), options and mutual funds.
Index ( Sensex & Nifty)
The Bombay Stock Exchange SENSEX (portmanteau of sensitive and index) also referred to as BSE 30 is a free-float market capitalization-weighted stock market index of 30 well-established and financially sound companies listed on Bombay Stock Exchange. The 30 component companies which are some of the largest and most actively traded stocks, are representative of various industrial sectors of the Indian economy. Published since January 1, 1986, the SENSEX is regarded as the pulse of the domestic stock markets in India. The base value of the SENSEX is taken as 100 on April 1, 1979, and its base year as 1978-79. On 25 July, 2001 BSE launched DOLLEX-30, a dollar-linked version of SENSEX. As of 21 April 2011, the market capitalisation of SENSEX was about 29,733 billion (US$654 billion) (42.34% of market capitalization of BSE), while its free-float market capitalization was 15,690 billion (US$345 billion).
Nifty:
Nifty Fifty was an informal term used to refer to 50 popular large cap stocks on the New York Stock Exchange in the 1960s and 1970s that were widely regarded as solid buy and hold growth stocks.
The fifty are credited with propelling the bull market of the early 1970s. Most are still solid performers, although a few are now defunct or otherwise worthless.
The long bear market of the 1970s that lasted until 1982 caused valuations of the nifty fifty to fall to low levels along with the rest of the market, with most of these stocks under-performing the broader market averages. A notable exception was Wal-Mart, the best performing stock on the list, with a 29.65% compounded annualized return over a 29 year period.[1]
Because of the under-performance of most of the nifty fifty list, it is often cited as an example of unrealistic investor expectations. However, those who held on until the late 1990s bull market saw many of the stocks return to market valuations.
Large Cap/ Mid Cap/ Small Cap:
Market capitalization (often simply market cap) is the total value of the tradable shares of a publicly traded company; it is equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding. As outstanding stock is bought and sold in public markets, capitalization could be used as a proxy for the public opinion of a company's net worth and is a determining factor in some forms of stock valuation. Preferred shares are not included in the calculation.
The total capitalization of stock markets or economic regions may be compared to other economic indicators. The total market capitalization of all publicly traded companies in the world was US$51.2 trillion in January 2007 and rose as high as US$57.5 trillion in May 2008 before dropping below US$50 trillion in August 2008 and slightly above US$40 trillion in September 2008.
• Mega-cap: Over $200 billion
• Large-cap: Over $5 billion
• Mid-cap: $1 billion–$5 billion
• Small-cap: $250 million–$1 billion
• Micro-cap: Below $250 million
• Nano-cap: Below $50 million