Stock indexes are collections of stocks meant to represent the market or a portion of it—they are used by investors as benchmarks against which to compare the performance of their own portfolios.

See how we rate investing products to write unbiased product reviews. The stock market is a group of stock exchanges where shares of public companies are bought and sold. The stock market provides ...

The term OTC markets refers to the stock exchanges that list more than 12,000 over-the-counter securities. Although they are often thought of as one big financial market, there are actually three ...