Wilshire 5000 Index: Understanding the World's Largest Stock Market Index

The Wilshire 5000 index is one of the most commonly used indices in the financial markets. Here are the basics of the Wilshire 5000 index and why it is important to investors.

Wilshire 5000 Index

The Wilshire 5000 index is a stock index that is designed to capture the movements of the entire stock market. Even though it is called the Wilshire 5000 index, the index has over 6500 stocks within it. This makes it one of the biggest financial indices in the world today.

Impact

Many investors use this index because it gives them a good indication of what the total stock market is doing. In fact, this index is often referred to as the total stock market index. It covers almost every publicly traded company in the United States today, although it does leave out foreign companies. This index is also a weighted index, with the companies at the top making up the majority of the holdings in the index. This makes it similar to the S&P 500 index. There are also index funds that track the movements of the Wilshire 5000 index. This provides you with a very diversified investment that will move with the market.