[GCB]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price weighted stock index which is calculated by special formula based on the stock prices of what are considered the thirty most important companies in the US. These stocks change from time to time. In fact, only GE is left from the original DJIA.

The YM is a index future whose price is totally calculated by supply and demand, the buying and selling of futures. It takes its cues from the DJIA. But the DJIA also takes its cues from the futures markets. So it hard to say which comes first, the chicken or the egg. When the stock market and the futures get out of sync, arbitragers step in a buy (sell) one and sell (buy) the other. It's an amazing process but somehow works out.

Think of the market as sort of the Wikipedia of price. Everyone contributes and somehow we end up with something more or less representative of value, at least over the long run.