Index with a $ symbol

daniel_fromcebu

How do you trade them? My platform does not accept them. And what is the significance of it?

markd

A symbol beginning with "$" is an index. For instance, $SPX is the SP500 large cap index from S&P. Indexes are not tradeable directly (even though some index charts shows volume). But many indexes have ETFs that are supposed to track them pretty closely. For instance, the SPY is an ETF that tracks the SP500, QQQ tracks $NDX, IWR tracks $MID (the SP400), IJR tracks $SML (SP600). There are many more.

It takes some detective work to find which ETF(s) go with which index, and then which are the best of those. You could start with the symbol catalog on Stockcharts - enter the index name and "etf", like "sp500 etf" and then start exploring. Or you could google "index etfs" and go from there.

daniel_fromcebu

Thanks markd. They do come up on my scanning and I don't know how it works.
I wish Stockcharts will include the ETF under the $ sign that we could trade.

markd

I think the problem is there are many ETFs that track any particular index. I think the best way is google.