The Wilshire 5000

Want a good look at how the overall U.S. stock market is doing? The Wilshire 5000 tracks a huge universe of stocks — in fact, it lists almost every publicly listed stock, including those listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Nasdaq Composite. That’s a pretty definitive look at the large-, medium-, and small-company stock markets.

This is not a must-read index, especially on a daily basis, but it is an index investors want to at least know about and have the option of viewing once in a while. It’s the largest index going. It gives an investor a broad sense of how the U.S. stock market overall is faring and in which direction stocks are headed. More mutual funds have also started investing in stocks listed in the Wilshire 5000, which gives investors total U.S. stock exposure.