To summarize.

In my last 10 blogs I gave you some information about some stock exchanges, mainly about the Dutch AEX. I explained that is may look easy to be succesfull with buying and selling shares, but that it really isn't. This had to do with the fact that you can never know what is going to happen the next day. In my last few blogs i told you some more about some other stock exchanges you can participate in. I can't give you any advice about on which stock exchange it's best to buy your shares, but i hope that with the information I gave you, you can decide it on your own.

To help you some more I will give you a link to a website on which you can see te latest development of all the stock exchanges I named, and some more.

The link: http://www.beurs.nl/.

The FTSE 100 index.

The FTSE 100 Index, better known as the "Footsie" is a share index of the 100 most capitalised companies of the United Kingdom listed on the London Stock Exchange, the LSE. FTSE stands for Financial Times Stock Exchange Index. When it first opened is had a 1000 points. Because of its succes, it has managed to reach a top op 6.950,6 points on 30 december, 1999. It is owned by the FTSE Group, and it considered as a measure of business prosperity.

The five largest companies of the FTSE 100 are;

BP(British Petrolium)- A British global energy company. It is the third largest energy company of the world, and the fourth largest company of the world.

HSBC(Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation)- It is incorporated in Britain in 1990. Nowadays it is the largest banking company of the world.

Vodafone- A British mobile network operator. It's market value of 71.2 billion pounds. It is the worlds second largest mobile phone operator right after China Mobile.

GlaxoSmithKline- A British healthcare company that was founded under the name GlaxoWellcome. It is the world second largest healthcare company.

Royal Dutch Shell- A petroleum company of Dutch and British origins. In 2009 Royal Dutch Shell was listed as the worlds largest company.

These are just the five largest, to name some other companies; Barclays, British Arways, Reed Elsevier, Thomas Cook Group, Unilever, Smiths Group and many other. After this you can imagine that the FTSE 100 is a very important index not just for the United Kingdom, but also for the rest of the world

The United Kingdom also has the FTSE 250, which is the index for the next largest 250 companies after the FTSE 100, and the FTSE 350, which is the aggregation of the FTSE 100 and the FTSE 250.

The Nasdaq.

The Nasdaq Stock Market, known as the Nasdaq, is an American stock exchange. When it was founded in 1971, it was called the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Qoutations. With approximately 3.700 companies and corporations, it does not just has the biggest trading volume of all the American stock exchanges, it has the biggest trading volume of the whole world. The companies who are on this exchange, are technological companies.

The Nasdaq went through some rough days when they had to close for three days as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But it also has some very good days. In 2007 and 2008 it took over the OMX and Philadelphia Stock Exhchange. OMX is one of the biggest Swedish stock exchanges and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange was the oldest American stock exchange, but since they were bought buy another, they lost this title to the Dow Jones. The company that own the Nasdaq is called the Nasdaq OMX group, that has not always been their name ,but when they took over the OMX they changed it into this name. They also tried to buy London Stock Exchange, the LSE, but they rejected an offer of 2,4 billion dollars.

The Nasdaq is by far the most technological advanced stock exchange of the world. Where on ever other stock exchange market people run around spreading the latest news by screaming, all at the same time, the Nasdaq is fully digitalised. All the latest news and development is displayed on several hundreds of television screens.

The Dow Jones.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average also referred to as the Industrial Average, the Dow-30, the Dow Jones or simply as the Dow, is the oldest American stock exchange. It's created by Wall Street Journal editor, Charles Dow on may 26, 1896. The index is named after him and one of his business associates, Edward Jones. It is considered to be one of the most important ideces of the world.

It is not without a reason why is such an important index. There are 30 companies included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. All these companies are well known all over the world. These all are worldwide multinationals, to give a few examples: 3M, American Express, AT&T, Bank of America, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, McDonald's, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart and Walt Disney. These are all American companies, who need nod furter introduction. Before General Motors got financial problems they were on the Dow Jones aswell.

Because of all these big multinationals, the Dow Jones has a reasonable amount of index points. Where the AEX has between the 330-350 index points, the Dow Jones has 10.500 points. 2008 has been one of the Dow Jones's worst years. It reached a six-year low of 7.552 points. This had to do with one of the, at that time included, company who went bankrupt. This was the company Lehman Brothers. Before going bankrupt, the Lehman Brothers lost 40 percent on just on day, 9 september, 2008. But somehow the Dow Jones managed to end the year with over 10.000 points.

Why choose for the AEX?

As i told you before, The Netherlands has two stock exchanges, the AEX and the AMX. So if you want to take part of a stock exchange, you have two choices. But you can also take part of an another stock exchange in a foreign country.

The United States of America also has some stock exchanges. The two best known are the Nasdaq Stock Market and Dow Jones. Most of the companies who are active on the Nasdaq, are technology related business. The Dow Jones is the oldest stock exchange of the United States of America.

There also is an 'European version' of the Dow Jones, the Dow Jones Eurostoxx 50. It's a joint venture of Deutsche Beurse AG, Dow Jones and SIX Swiss Exchange. The Dow Jones Eurostoxx 50 is the most populair stock exchange of Europe. There are three Dutch companies on this exchange, Philips, Aegon and Unilever.

Almost every country in Europe has their own stock exchange.

The Netherlands ; AEX, AMX.

Austria ; ATX.

Belgium ; BEL20.

Romania ; BET 10.

Germany ; DAX.

United Kingdom ; FTSE 100.

Spain ; IBEX-35.

Finland ; OMX Helsinki 25.

These are just some that are populair in The Netherlands.

Asia also has some stock exchanges. India has BSE sensex, Honk Kong has the Hang Seng, Indonesia has LQ-45, South Korea has Kospi Index but the best known is the Nikkei 225 from Japan.

So you have a lot of choices. To help you a bit further I will provide you with some information of some of the mentioned stock exchanges in my next couple of blogs.

How to be succesfull on the AEX.

As i told you before, it is not easy to be succesfull on the AEX. You can be succesfull by looking at recent development and then use your common sense. But if you are not good at this, or you just don't want to make the effort, there are a lot of institutions wiling to help you.

First of all there are a lot of magazines about stock exchanges all over the world. In this magazines, like 'Cash Magazine', are tips about which shares you need to buy when. This is the cheapest way, but it also has some risks. As i mentioned in one of my previous blogs, the AEX can be very unpredictable, just like any other stock exchange. Most of the magazines appear once or twice a month. So it does not give you the most recent information you need.

In The Netherlands we also have a program about the development of the AEX and AMX, it's called RTL-Z. In this program experts predict what is going to happen in the next couple of days. You also get the most recent development of every company who offer their shares on the AEX. This development is updated every minute.

Another option is to open an account at a special bank. When you open an account at a bank like 'Alex', you give them the permission to invest your money by buying shares. You can also choose to buy shares your own, and you get help from experts who work at the bank.

The succes of 2009.

After a bad start, 2009 has been a great year for the AEX index, aswell as for other indexes. The AEX closed the year 2009 at 335,27 index points. So where it lost 52,3 percent in 2008, it gained 36,35 percent in 2009.

Apart from the AEX, the Dutch also have the so called MidCap index, the AMX. The AMX is composed of 25 companies who are not big enough to be a part of the AEX index. The AMX was founded a lot later then the AEX. The AMX was founded in 1995. The AMX experienced a growth of almost 64 percent.

In my previous blogs I told you something about the beginning of 2009. I told you that 2009 had a bad start and that it recovered. The comodity related companies had the biggest profits, because most people thought the world economy would soon recover.

The coper price for instance, reached a 16 month high. You have to pay 7407 dollar per ton. The price of metal increased with almost 140 percent. Oil prices went up aswell. The price for one barrel of oil(159 liters) went up by 80 percent.

The most succesfull companies of 2009 are ASMI, OCÉ and Randstad. ASMI grew by 189,9 percent, and with that it is the most succesfull of all. OCÉ grew by 174 percent, and Randstad by 143,7 percent.

The company 'Wessanen' lost the most. It lost 5,0 percent over the year 2009. But the absolute worst performing company was ofcourse Fortis, Who went bankrupt.