Talk:Stock market index

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I've heard some significant figures, e.g. John Templeton, say flatly that all stock market indexes are ethical indexes with respect to the buying public's minimum criteria to trust *any* stock - and that over time all indices in all industries must emulate the ethicals in applying mechanical criteria such as scenarios (so-called 'mark to future'). That standards for the index may go down over time but the buying public will not want sudden surprises on scale of Enron. Biggest noise on this subject is Ron Dembo.

If that's even remotely true, ethicals and mechanicals require much much more space than industry indices.

Warren Buffet is more of a disclosure bug...

Can someone explain how the index figures are calculated? adamsan 15:56, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] inflation-correction

I'm a newcomer, so I'm just writing this as a suggestion.

I use the US as an example here. Stock prices are in US$, and so are the various indexes/averages of them. Values of an index from (very) different times are commonly compared. The purchasing power of the US$ has declined a lot over time. So, sound representation of an index is showing it in terms of purchasing power, i.e., after inflation-correction.

I suggest that this point be strongly incorporated into the article "Stock market index".