Market Data

Recent prices for a selection of stock market indices, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and individual stocks. Unlike the charts elsewhere on this site, which use simulated data, these are real numbers from Yahoo Finance. They are useful for seeing the ideas from the articles at work in today’s markets.

Reading the table

• Last is the most recent price. While a market is open it is the delayed price of the current session; after the close it is the closing price.
• Change and Change % compare that price with the previous trading day’s close.
• Day range is the lowest and highest price of the latest session.
• Volume is the number of shares traded in that session. Indices are calculated rather than traded, so they have no volume of their own.
• 1 month plots the daily closes of about the last 22 trading days, with the change over that period.
• Date is the trading day of the latest price. Exchanges in different time zones open and close at different times, so the dates in one table can differ.

What to look for

• Fear and the indices. The VIX measures the volatility that options traders expect for the S&P 500. It usually rises on days when the stock indices fall, one of the reasons why volatility targeting reduces exposure after sell-offs.
• Diversification. Compare broad ETFs such as SPY or EFA with single stocks. Individual companies move much more from day to day, which is the volatility that spreading money across many holdings removes.
• Trends. The one-month sparklines show which markets are trending and which are moving sideways. The trend-following and mean-reversion articles explain how each kind of market is traded.