NASDAQ 100 — what moves when the index moves · Nigeria
An index is a list of companies with unequal shares, recalculated continuously. This page is about that mechanism: which events reach the number, which ones are diluted away, and why the line it draws does not behave like the line of one company.
Open Exness Account →An index is not something that moves; it is a number recalculated from a list of companies that do not enter it in equal parts. A company holding a large share of the calculation can move the number on its own, while the same percentage move in a small one is almost invisible in it. That single fact — unequal shares across a long list — explains why one headline reaches the number and another does not, and why a line built this way behaves unlike the line of any single company inside it.
The contract name, settled first
On Exness, the NASDAQ 100 index is traded as a CFD under the symbol USTEC — on cent and mini accounts it appears as USTECm. Some brokers label the same index NAS100 or US100; on Exness the ticker is USTEC. The Dow Jones 30 is US30 and the S&P 500 is US500.
| Index | Exness symbol | Also searched as |
|---|---|---|
| NASDAQ 100 | USTEC | NAS100 or US100 at other brokers |
| Dow Jones 30 | US30 | US Wall Street 30 (the Dow) |
| S&P 500 | US500 | US 500 |
These are contract names in the MetaTrader terminal, not names of the index itself; the cent and mini variants carry an “m” suffix (USTECm, US30m, US500m). Everything below this table is about the number the contract tracks rather than about the contract.
Recorded dealing cost on the index contracts
| Index (Exness symbol) | Cent symbol | Lowest | Typical (median) | Busy market (p90) | Ticks sampled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NASDAQ 100 (USTEC) | USTECm | 112 | 112 | 112 | 1,430,130 |
| Dow Jones 30 (US30) | US30m | 10 | 10 | 13 | 199,408 |
| S&P 500 (US500) | US500m | 40 | 40 | 40 | 207,297 |
Recorded on Exness’s own MetaTrader 5 feed — 1,836,835 ticks sampled, last captured 2026-08-29. Values are index points: Lowest = the tightest quiet-market quote, Typical = the median, Busy market = the wider spread seen about 10% of the time. Server Exness-MT5Trial11, feed 2026.08.29 07:46:14.
The contract behind the number, in one table
| Trading the NASDAQ 100 at Exness | |
|---|---|
| Underlying | NASDAQ 100 index (US tech 100) |
| Exness symbol | USTEC (cent / mini account: USTECm) |
| Instrument type | Index CFD — cash contract for difference |
| Measured typical spread | 112 index points (lowest 112, p90 112 over 1,430,130 ticks) |
| Contract size | 1 per lot |
| Min / max order | 0.05 / 500 lots |
| Tick value | $0.01 per lot (from the measured feed) |
| Platforms | MetaTrader 5, MetaTrader 4, Exness Terminal, Exness Trade app |
Indicative conditions for the USTEC index CFD; spread, margin and swap are all variable, so the live figures shown in the platform are the ones that apply. The table describes the contract, while the index it follows is a calculation over a list of companies.
Where these readings come from
- Recorded in-terminal on Exness’s own MetaTrader 5 pricing feed — not a third-party estimate.
- An MQL5 expert advisor logs every tick’s bid and ask in-terminal, so the spread is exactly what the platform shows.
- 1,836,835 ticks across the US index CFDs; the figures refresh on a schedule.
Index spreads are variable and widen around the cash-market open, high-impact US data and the daily rollover. Past readings do not guarantee future spreads. Last updated 2026-08-29.
Trade indices with Exness →What a weight is, without the arithmetic
Every company on the list enters the calculation with a share, and the shares are not equal. A one per cent move in a company carrying a large share shifts the number far more than a one per cent move in a company carrying a small one. Same headline, same size of move, two completely different consequences for the index.
This is the part that surprises anyone reading an index for the first time. A story can be enormous for the company it is about and still leave the number roughly where it was, because that company's share of the calculation is small. The reverse holds too: an unremarkable move in one of the largest shares shows up plainly in the number.
Why one event reaches the number and another does not
Events belonging to one company — a product, a change of management, one set of results — arrive at a single entry in the list. Their effect on the index is their effect on that company scaled down by its share, and across a long list such surprises tend to point in different directions on the same day and partly cancel each other.
Events belonging to all of them at once — a shift in what interest rates are expected to do, a change in the cost of an input the whole sector buys, a broad change in appetite for risk — arrive at every entry simultaneously and in the same direction. Nothing cancels, so the number moves even though no single company produced remarkable news.
So the question worth asking when the number moves is not what happened but to how many of them it happened. One large share can do it alone; a small share cannot; a driver common to the list does it without any single name standing out.
How a line built from a list behaves
A line drawn from a long weighted list is quiet in a specific way. The one-off shocks that dominate a single company's chart — results far from expectations, a suspension, a legal outcome — are divided by that company's share before they reach the index, so they arrive as small notches rather than gaps.
What survives that dilution is whatever the entries have in common. That is why an index line can trend steadily while the individual charts inside it look nothing alike, and why it rarely produces the isolated vertical move a single share can. It is a different kind of line, not a smoothed version of the same one.
The list itself is not fixed either. Companies are added and removed, and shares change as the companies do, so the number carries a slowly shifting composition rather than a permanent basket.
Reading a move in four questions
- Whose event is it? One company on the list, a group of them, or something that touches every entry at once.
- How large is that entry's share? A move in a small share cannot carry the number, however dramatic the story attached to it.
- Is the driver common to the list? If it is, expect the number to move with no single name standing out.
- Are most entries pointing the same way? A number moving while the entries disagree usually means one large share is doing the work alone.
None of these questions predicts anything. They only separate a move the structure of an index can account for from one it cannot.
The same event, seen by one company and by the index
| What happened | Effect on that company's line | Effect on the index line |
|---|---|---|
| Results from one company land far from expectations | Large and immediate | The same move divided by that company's share; visible only if the share is large |
| A cost the whole sector carries changes | Moderate, and in the same direction as its peers | Full effect, because nothing cancels |
| Expectations for interest rates shift | Moderate | Full effect; a common driver reaches every entry |
| One company is suspended from trading | Its line stops | The number carries on; the remaining entries still calculate |
| A company is added to or removed from the list | Nothing changes for the company itself | The composition behind the number changes from that point on |
The middle column is about one line on a chart. The right column is about a number recomputed from many of them.