Dow Jones Futures

Important: This page is part of archived content and may be outdated.

Dow Jones futures are future contracts which are based on the overall Dow Jones index and the total of the 30 companies which the index itself represents. Financially speaking a future contract is in simple terms a contract between two entities; the buyer and the seller to sell and buy a specific asset respectively at a predetermined date of delivery with a price agreed upon today. The case of Dow Jones futures is no different besides the fact they are clearly related to the Dow index itself and offer traders an opportunity to combine their trading in the foreign exchange markets with a more diverse product.

The term Dow has today managed to become synonymous with a metric of fluctuations of the market as its full abbreviation which is the Dow Jones Industrial represents 30 major stocks which add up to the index itself and represent a major proportion of the outlook the market itself has day after day.

These 30 stocks are of course subject to changes from time based on market, financial and political changes but in general terms include publicly owned large scale US based companies which make up the general image of the US economy. Corporations included in the Dow index include amongst others Wal-Mart, Procter and Gamble, JP Morgan, Kraft Foods, Mc Donalds, Microsoft, GE, Coca Cola, Boeing, IBM, Intel, Caterpillar, Chevron, Bank of America and AT&T.

Dow Jones futures offer traders an opportunity to increase their market exposure efficiently with a mid sized contract in a segment of the market which is considered to be an overall strong selling point of the US stock market meaning that Dow June futures provide an overall cheaper way to trade compared to selecting to trade individual stocks and even more combine a range of trading strategies which can be coupled with diversity of the foreign exchange.

Dow Jones Future

Dow Jone future is a term often searched by traders which seek to find information about either trading Dow Jones Futures or about updates of the Dow Jones index itself. In simple terms “Dow Jone Future” does not mean anything different from the plural of the term although it can be conceived to be meaning the overall future of the Dow Jones index itself which might be the first thing that crosses your mind when coming across the term in general.

Dow Jones Index

As mentioned above the Dow, Dow Jones Index or Dow Jones Industrial Average as its full and complete name is, is an Index which overall represents 30 of Americas key influential companies which overall shape and influence the American economy in a whole.

Besides the most popular Dow Jones Industrial Average which is the most influential of all Dow indexes, a broad range of other indexes are named after the father of technical analysis and founder of Dow Jones & Company which till recently operated the total range of indexes attached to its name which represent the outlook of numerous sectors of the worldwide economy.

Other popular Dow indexes include the Global Dow, the Dow Jones BRIC 50 Index, the Dow Jones Utility Average, the Dow Jones Global Titans 50 Index, the Dow Jones Corporate Bond, the Dow Jones China Indexes, the Dow Jones Precious Metals and the Dow Jones Hedge Fund. Nevertheless future products and Dow Jones futures themselves are more or less limited to the larger Dow Jones Industrial Average which are offered by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and carry the Dow Index name; they include the E-mini Dow, the big Dow and the Dow and are all based on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Each and every of the above have separate multipliers which in turn of course affects their contract sizes; the E-Mini Dow Jones Futures or Mini Dow Jones Futures which is offered for trading with the symbol YM or the Bloomberg Code DMA has a multiplier of $5 representing its size against the DOW which is $5 times bigger.