What You Need to Know About Indexes

A trader reacts on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the closing bell in New York on Dec. 30, 2022. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

By Kim Clark From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance

Today, there are an estimated 3 million indexes that provide benchmarks against which to measure investment performance and serve as recipes for the portfolios of a vast number of indexed mutual and exchange-traded funds.