Points in stock market --> Index is nothing but a Average Share Price of companies.

DOW has 30, S&P 500 has (duh), Russell 3000

lets assume, Inception Index has only 3 company in it, each company have stock price of 10 so total is 30 , average 30/3 = 10

if one 10, 10, 11 (price increase in one company) [Inception Index is now 10.33)
next day trading, if 9,10,8 (Inception Index is 9)

and so on....

Market--> is nothing but a place where you go and exchange (buy/sell) your goods. If market fell 1000 points means AVERAGE/MEAN came down!!  [ in our example one company share price is 15 and others dropped to 1 and 1 =17/3 =5.67 stock market dropped ~4 points, so it's a Overall Average of how Companies are doing (or its Stock atleast)!!


Dynamics of World Economic....practically can't expalin in this thread but let me try.

US Stock Market-->Japan (Nikkei)-->London(LSE) [3 major market and it kinda makes full 24 hours of Operaion if we combine hour of operation of three]

Now just follow Nas's cartoon......SELL in US [Market Closes], Japan market opens and see the US Market down, damn we need to SELL too so they sell...and LSE market opens and they see US and Japan Selling so we better sell too!!

I'm Engineer by profession too, I just sat for couple of Finanace and Economics classes in college just to broaden my horizon!!

I read this book and feel it's a good read Understanding Wall Street