Arithmetic Index

  

Categories: Metrics, Index Funds

A group of securities whose overall value is determined by giving equal weight to each security’s performance rather than weighting by other factors like its market weight (think Nasdaq 100) or price weight (the Dow Jones).

It’s nothing more than a straight-up, vanilla average of the performance of all the securities in the index. Like if we have in our index 1,000 shares of GE at $15 and 2,000 shares of MO at $58 and 5,000 shares of AAPL at $200, even though the weighted average in the index of AAPL is way more than the other stocks in there, the arithmetic index ignores the weighting. It just takes the plain jane average of 15, 58, and 200 and reports what the arithmetic mean index did.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is Compounding Value or Co...1773 Views

00:00

Finance allah shmoop What is calm Pounding value or compounding

00:06

interest Ah the power of compounding it makes tree's stronger

00:12

pollution More feral and the rich Well richer How so

00:16

Well let's start with compounds kissing cousin with six toes

00:20

Arithmetic calm pounding Right So the first was really geometric

00:24

compounding Now we're talking about arithmetic compounding If you invest

00:27

a thousand bucks in a ten year bond that pay

00:29

six percent a year in interest the dough comes back

00:32

to you in a pattern that looks like this Like

00:35

every six months they pay thirty bucks and it's sixty

00:38

dollars a year Got it nice You get the total

00:41

of sixteen hundred bucks back from your investment And the

00:44

cash that came back to you you know came in

00:47

small parts all along the way until you got about

00:50

two thirds of it or sixty percent at the end

00:52

right If you just spent that money and collected your

00:55

thousand bucks at the end That's it Okay So that's

00:58

arithmetic compounding the money comes to you You don't reinvest

01:01

it Ding ding ding that's the key here and you

01:03

just go buy burgers Okay So now let's look at

01:07

what six percent compound id looks like over the same

01:10

ten year period Wealth at the end of your one

01:12

it's a thousand sixty bucks and no we're only going

01:14

to compound it annually We probably should do the semi

01:17

annually but we confuse you even more is we won't

01:19

do that but then you essentially re invest that money

01:22

and you get another six percent compounded on that thousand

01:25

sixty instead of six percent compounded against the original thousand

01:29

so by the end of your two you'll have a

01:31

thousand one hundred twenty three sixty and by the end

01:34

of your ten you'll have one thousand seven hundred ninety

01:36

dollars and eighty five cents So why do you make

01:40

so much more money when you compound interest versus getting

01:44

thirty bucks twice a year like you would in this

01:46

bond example going by and burgers with it You don't

01:49

wanna do that well essentially what's happening is that you're

01:52

delaying your gratification of getting that sweet sweet cash or

01:57

getting liquid Whatever you wanna call it by reinvesting your

02:00

gains year after year after year So do you have

02:03

that sort of self control Do you need the cash

02:06

Yeah that's The question If you for example have trouble

02:09

making it home from your local pizza spot with the

02:12

pie intact well and compound interest Keeping the discipline to

02:16

not spend the money today and wait for the happiness

02:18

tomorrow Well when that may not be for you Sorry

Up Next

Finance: What Are ETFs?
275 Views

What are ETFs? They are Exchange Traded Funds, and unlike index funds, they don't really change, or rebalance, based on the industries represented...

Finance: What is the S&P 500?
45 Views

What is the S&P 500? It's Standard & Poor's 500 generally largest companies, with a U.S. domestic bias. The S&P 500 is usually what investors think...

Finance: What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average?
2710 Views

What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average? The Dow Jones Industrial Average is usually just called the Dow. It’s an average of 30 of the most well...

Finance: What is the Wilshire 5000?
9 Views

The Wilshire 5000 is an index fund, which is kind of a bummer...it sounded like a cool financial robot.

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)