market evaluation

This week you will provide an overview of the stock market and evaluate its past performance. Your discussion should include:

General

Evaluation of Overall Stock Market Performance Using the Main Indexes:

Compare and contrast the three major stock market indexes (i.e. Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and NASDAQ Composite).
Graph the performance of indexes from 1996 to present.
Analyze the trends and explain the major events from 1996.
Discuss the overall economic outlook and analystsâ€™ forecast of the stock market.
What are the factors that affect how the stock market performs?
Where do you see the stock market going over the next three months? One year? Three years?

Your well-written paper should meet the following requirements:

Be two or three pages in length for the analysis and explanations
Be formatted according to the CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA (Links to an external site.)
Include graphs and Excel spreadsheets; these spreadsheets should be embedded in the Word document as an appendix after your analysis and explanations
Include a minimum of three credible references.

See the Embedding Instructions for instructions on how to embed an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document.