When stepping beyond American Markets, the first step may be the German DAX. Patterned after the United States, like the organization of the German Government. Yes, since the end of World War II, because of the Marshall Plan as written by Will L Clayton while traveling on a train from Houston to Washington. The Marshall Plan put Germany on a political and economic course that has proven to be a world success story.
The DAX (Deutscher Aktien IndeX, formerly Deutscher Aktien-Index (German stock index)) is a blue chip stock market index consisting of the 30 major German companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Prices are taken from the electronic Xetra trading system. According to Deutsche Börse, the operator of Xetra, DAX measures the performance of the Prime Standard’s 30 largest German companies in terms of order book volume and market capitalization.[2] It is the equivalent of the FT 30 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and because of its small selection it does not necessarily represent the vitality of the economy as whole.
The L-DAX Index is an indicator of the German benchmark DAX index's performance after the Xetra electronic-trading system closes based on the floor trading at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The L-DAX Index basis is the "floor" trade (Parketthandel) at the Frankfurt stock exchange; it is computed daily between 09:00 and 17:30 Hours CET. The L-DAX index (Late DAX) is calculated from 17:30 to 20:00 CET.
The Eurex, a European electronic futures and options exchange based in Zurich, Switzerland with a subsidiary in Frankfurt, Germany, offers options (ODAX) and Futures (FDAX) on the DAX from 08:00 to 22:00 CET.
I met the DAX in 2002 complements of Tom Busby at the Day Trading Institute of Mobile Alabama. I was attending a trading course offered by Tom's Institute at the time and he tells the story about when all the U.S. markets were closed for a couple weeks following the 911 disaster. He wanted to trade but couldn't, so he asked some friends about trading European Index Futures, so he tried the London FTSE and the French CAC and lost a little money. Then he traded the DAX and made money; therefore, he embraced the DAX and is still successfully trading it today. There are many positives to trading the DAX; however, there are a couple negatives.
1.) The DAX trades in Euros, so, you must convert some of your brokerage account to Euros. And, then you must you Euro funds to make certain they do not move too far against your account U.S. funds at your brokerage.
2.) The DAX moves the most during the wee, wee [to quote the phrase squealed by the Little GEICO pig] early morning hours of the U.S. Markets, so, when you want to trade it, you need to get up with the chickens. But, if you do, you can access some very good trading because it trades at $25 a point and has a tremendous range of
In your quest to learn all essential ingredients . . .
Click to view all 30 components of the German DAX
