monday spi, page-29

prophet, of course we should leave room for the market to decide. And gann45, to an extent I agree with you. Knowing and keeping tabs on each company in an index would be really useful, but unless you have the software to do it in real time its not much use for short term trading. That software is available and I think we see it in use every day, when the futures move a few seconds ahead of the cash index. But one of the pleasures of trading the index is that you don't have to pick stocks. The indexes respond more to macro events than do the individual stocks in it (although each company does have an effect, depending on its weighting in the index and the perceived relevance of the macro event to that company). So trading the index is like trading the waves or tides rather than the bobbing about of each boat in the marina. cheers!