What is the Wilshire Total Market Index?
Wilshire Total Maket Index The Wilshire 5000 Equity Index, often referred to as the Wilshire Total Market Index, is probably the largest stock Index in the world. Wilshire Associates stated out in 1980 tracking 5000 stocks. Since then the Wilshire 5000 has ballooned to cover more than 7000 stocks. The advantage of the Wilshire 5000 is that it’s very comprehensive, covering nearly the entire market. For investors and anlaysts that seek the greatest representation performance of the general market, they would check out this index. (At the very least, the Wilshire 5000 tracks the largest publicly traded stocks.) It includes all the stocks that are on the major stock exchange (NYSE, AMEX, and the largest issue on NASDAQ) which by default also include all the stock covered by the S&P 500. The Wilshire 5000 is a market-value weighted index.
