What is the Dow and the Nasdaq?

With all the doom and gloom going on in the stock market, I wanted to know why they keep talking about the Dow and the Nasdaq, what does it all mean?

So what is the Dow?

It’s short for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is an index of thirty, blue chip stocks that are traded in the United States. By looking at the companies on the list a person can get a general picture of how the market as a whole is performing.

So what are these thirty blue chip stocks?

PFE
Pfizer
VZ
Verizon
MO
Altria
T
AT&T
C
Citigroup
MRK
Merck
GM
General Motors
DD
DuPont
GE
General Electric
JPM
JP Morgan Chase
KO
Coca-Cola
MMM
Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing
JNJ
Johnson & Johnson
MCD
McDonald's
HD
Home Depot
HON
Honeywell
AA
Alcoa
INTC
Intel
CAT
Caterpillar
PG
Procter & Gamble
UTX
United Technologies
XOM
ExxonMobil
BA
Boeing
WMT
Wal-Mart
MSFT
Microsoft
IBM
International Business Machines
AXP
American Express
AIG
American International Group
DIS
Disney
HPQ
Hewlett-Packard

So what's the Nasdaq?

The NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange. It is the largest electronic screen-based equity securities trading market in the United States. With approximately 3,200 companies, it has more trading volume per day than any other stock exchange in the world.

So now you know why, when America sneezes, we, the rest of the world, catch the flu.