Which US market indexes (Dow/DJIA, S&P500, NASDAQ) include reinvested dividends?
.INX (the S&P 500 index itself) does not include reinvested dividens.  You can figure total return by going to Yahoo finance, historical data. Choose the start year, and end year. You should find that data for SPY (going back to 1993) will show an adjusted close, and takes dividends into account. This isn't perfect as SPY has a .09% expense ratio, but it's better than just the S&P index. One of the more popular Dow ETF is DIA, this will let you similarly track the Dow while accounting for dividends. While the S&P500 is not a total return index, there is an official total return S&P500 that includes reinvested dividends and which is typically used for benchmarking.  For a long time it was not available for free, but it can currently be found on yahoo finance using the ticker ^SP500TR.
You could take these definitions from MSCI as an example of how to proceed.  They calculate price indices (PR) and total return indices (including dividends).  For performance benchmarks the net total return (NR) indices are usually the most relevant. In your example the gross total return (TR) is 25%. From the MSCI Index Defintions page :- The MSCI Price Indexes measure the price performance of markets   without including dividends. On any given day, the price return of an   index captures the sum of its constituents’ free float-weighted market   capitalization returns. The MSCI Total Return Indexes measure the price performance of markets   with the income from constituent dividend payments. The MSCI Daily   Total Return (DTR) Methodology reinvests an index constituent’s   dividends at the close of trading on the day the security is quoted   ex-dividend (the ex-date). Two variants of MSCI Total Return Indices are calculated: With Gross Dividends: Gross total return indexes reinvest as much as possible of a company’s   dividend distributions. The reinvested amount is equal to the total   dividend amount distributed to persons residing in the country of the   dividend-paying company. Gross total return indexes do not, however,   include any tax credits. With Net Dividends: Net total return indexes reinvest dividends after the deduction of   withholding taxes, using (for international indexes) a tax rate   applicable to non-resident institutional investors who do not benefit   from double taxation treaties. I hate to point to Wikipedia as an answer, but it does describe exactly what you are looking for... The S&P 500 is a free-float   capitalization-weighted index   published since 1957 of the prices of   500 large-cap common stocks actively   traded in the United States. The   stocks included in the S&P 500 are   those of large publicly held companies   that trade on either of the two   largest American stock market   exchanges; the New York Stock Exchange   and the NASDAQ. The components of the S&P 500 are   selected by committee... The committee   selects the companies in the S&P 500   so they are representative of the   industries in the United States   economy. In addition, companies that   do not trade publicly (such as those   that are privately or mutually held)   and stocks that do not have sufficient   liquidity are not in the index. The S&P is a capitalization weighted index.  If a stock price goes up, then it comprises more of the total index.  If a stock goes down, it comprises less, and if it goes down too much, the committee will likely replace it. So to answer your question, if one stock were to suddenly skyrocket, nothing would happen beyond the fact that the index was now worth more and that particular stock would now make up a larger percentage of the S&P 500 index. "You avoid pattern day trader status by trading e-mini futures through a futures broker. The PDT rules do not apply in the futures markets. Some of the markets that are available include representatives covering the major indices i.e the YM (DJIA), ES (S&P 500) and NQ (Nasdaq 100) and many more markets.  You can take as many round-turn trades as you care to...as many or as few times a day  as you like. E-mini futures contracts trade in sessions with ""transition"" times between sessions. -- Sessions begin Sunday evenings at 6 PM EST and are open through Monday evening at 5 PM EST...The next session begins at 6 pm Monday night running through Tuesday at 5 PM EST...etc...until Friday's session close at 5 PM EST. Just as with stocks, you can either buy first then sell (open and close a position) or short-sell (sell first then cover by buying). You profit (or lose) on a round turn trade in the same manor as you would if trading stocks, options, ETFs etc. The e-mini futures are different than the main futures markets that you may have seen traders working in the ""pits"" in Chicago...E-mini futures are totally electronic (no floor traders) and do not involve any potential delivery of the 'product'...They just require the closing of positions to end a transaction.  A main difference is you need to maintain very little cash in your account in order to trade...$1000 or less per trade, per e-mini contract...You can trade just 1 contract at a time or as many contracts as you have the cash in your account to cover.   ""Settlement"" is immediate upon closing out any position that you may have put on...No waiting for clearing before your next trade.  If you want to hold an e-mini contract position over 2 or more sessions, you need to have about $5000 per contract in your account to cover the minimum margin requirement that comes into play during the transition between sessions... With the e-minis you are speculating on gaining from the difference between when you 'put-on' and ""close-out"" a position in order to profit. For example, if you think the DJIA is about to rise 20 points, you can buy 1 contract. If you were correct in your assessment and sold your contract after the e-mini rose 20 points, you profited $100. (For the DJIA e-mini, each 1 point 'tick' is valued at $5.00)" try over in /r/personalfinance  Economics is about understanding the economy and how it works. Investing is about taking your money and putting it somewhere useful. They're related; but what you want probably isn't economy-wide advice, but specific individual options.  FYI, they'll recommend you get into some index fund to start; one that just tracks a big index like the Dow Jones, Nasdaq, or S&amp;P 500. These help diversify your risk and tend to offer good returns. But, a lot depends on what your personal situation entails, so head on over there and read their FAQ. Sorry for the late reply. Nonetheless the Dow has the same pros as any other index but what sticks out to me is that all of the stocks are extremely popular with private investors. In my experience it helps to compare stock development of competitors in terms of popularity. The current Dow divisor is in Historical Divisor Changes. The OpenOffice GetQuote function offers fields for current dividend either in dollars or yield. Dividends. There are blue chip companies that have paid and raised their dividends for 20 or more years. As an example: Altria (MO). There are also ETFs that specialize in such stocks such as SDY. "Morningstar is often considered a trusted industry standard when it comes to rating mutual funds and ETFs.  They offer the same data-centric information for other investments as well, such as individual stocks and bonds.  You can consult Morningstar directly if you like, but any established broker will usually provide you with Morningstar's ratings for the products it is trying to sell to you. Vanguard offers a few Emerging Markets stock and bond funds, some actively managed, some index funds.  Other investment management companies (Fidelity, Schwab, etc.) presumably do as well.  You could start by looking in Morningstar (or on the individual companies' websites) to find what the similarities and differences are among these funds.  That can help answer some important questions: I personally just shove a certain percentage of my portfolio into non-US stocks and bonds, and of that allocation a certain fraction goes into ""established"" economies and a certain fraction into ""emerging"" ones.  I do all this with just a few basic index funds, because the indices make sense (to me) and index funds cost very little."