Shares can be listed on a stock market, but this is not necessarily the case. When you invest through ABN AMRO, you invest in shares listed and traded on stock markets such as Euronext Amsterdam in the Netherlands and the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ in the US. In order to give investors a clear view of how shares or groups of shares on a stock market are performing, stock markets have developed indices. AEX is one such index, containing 25 companies with the highest market capitalisation (the number of freely tradable shares multiplied by the share price on the Amsterdam stock exchange). Other Dutch indices are AMX and the AScX. Internationally, well-known indices include the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P500 and NASDAQ.