The DAX is a is a blue chip stock market index made up of 30 major German companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, founded in July 1988. DAX stands for Deutscher Aktienindex, translated literally to German Stock Index. The DAX is equivalent to the Dow Jones Industrial Average here in the US. The 30 stocks that make up the DAX are simply the 30 largest companies on the Frankfort Stock Exchange, based on order book volume and market capitalization. DAX is a Capitalization-weighted index.

The DAX is a large cap type of stock index that has to indexing versions. The two versions report different values. The first version is the performance index. This version is more commonly quoted and includes dividends in the quote. The second version is the price index. This version is most similar to other indices in other countries and markets. The price index is calcultated like any weighted average, Current index = Current total market cap of constituents × Previous Value / Previous Period.

The DAX started out at 1,000 from its base date in December of 1987, before it was first calculated and published in July of 1988. The highest closing price for the DAX occurred this year in April on the 10th, when it closed at 12,374.73. Today the closing price was 10,131.74. Some of the more familiar companies on the DAX are Adidas, BMW, Bayer, BASF, SAP, Siemens, and Volkswagon. The trend of the DAX is fairly similar to that of the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last ten