When trading, you’ve probably hear people say they are up X “points” on a trade.A stock market point is a unit of measurement used to track the changes in the value of a stock or index. It is calculated by taking the current price of a stock or index and subtracting the previous closing price. For Stocks:A point is simply equal to a one-dollar movement.For Indexes:A point change in a stock index such as the S&P 500 is still a $1 move in the index, but the point changes result from stocks within the index increasing and decreasing in value. It is much easier to say that the index is up 100 points rather than the stocks within it are up $700m. Points in a stock index make analyzing the change in the value of the index as a whole easier than analyzing the increase of each company.General Overview
