The U.S stock market is made up of exchanges where stocks can be both bought and sold.

Some examples of exchanges are the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange), NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System) and AMEX (American Stock Exchange).

NYSE is the largest stock market in the world, based on capitalization, with a yearly turnover of approximately US $10 trillion (about US $40 billion per day). It is made up of about 3, 800 America's listed companies.

NYSE Euronext, the holding company created by the combination of NYSE Group, Inc. and Euronext N.V. brings together six cash equities exchanges in five countries and six derivatives exchanges.

NASDAQ is another exchange comprising about 3, 700 stocks, mainly in the biotech and technology industries, with a turnover of approximately US $27 billion per day.

AMEX is another exchange consisting of about 1, 200 securities.

There are more than 10, 000 additional securities available through the US national stock exchanges.

There are many different market indexes in the US markets. The main indexes used to measure the performance of the markets include the Dow Jones Industrial Average or DJIA, which includes 30 of America's largest corporations.

There are many more indexes, such as the Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P 5000) which measures 500 companies that are leaders in their respective industries.

Other indexes include the NASDAQ Composite Index, the AMEX Composite, and the Russell 2000 (made up of 2000 stocks) etc.

When we refer to the broader market, we are mostly referring to the DOW, NASDAQ and the S&P 500.

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