Mar 12, 9:30AM

Nasdaq-100 Index Previous Close:
03/11/2010 4:00 PM 1923.81

Sam Collins' Report

How Will the Market React to the Fed's News?

  In another day of broad-based buying, but with very light volume -- the lightest volume in over a month -- the major indices...Read the full story

Market Currents by

5:35 AM   Initial estimates peg first-day iPad (AAPL) sales at 120K, for delivery beginning April 3. Analyst Victor Castroll: "Apple has been able to generate over $75M in revenue in one day on a product that 99.9% of purchasers haven't touched or for that matter, even seen in person, and we're still three weeks away. That is amazing."

6:35 PM   A recent study picks up on a disturbing trend: For the first time ever, premium borrowers are defaulting on their mortgages quicker than on their credit card debt. A possible explanation: Those in danger of losing their homes anyway still need credit cards to buy groceries.

5:46 PM   Regulatory reform might not be a lost cause, despite a recent collapse in talks. In a letter signed by Sen. Richard Shelby, Republicans said they remain open to working out a solution, but demanded that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd slow down the process to give them time to consider a new bill he plans to release on Monday.

5:30 PM   Hans-Werner Sinn, head of the Ifo think tank, says the rush to rescue Greece through a new European Monetary Fund could endanger the euro: "I fear the fund would become a redistribution system, distributing the resources of the more prudent countries to the less prudent ones."

5:17 PM   "Is today’s agricultural industry suffering from a lack of free and fair competition in the marketplace?" asks AG Eric Holder. Farmers are nervous about a few large firms that dominate many agricultural markets, and Holder is promising "an historic era of enforcement." (but...)

Read all today's Market Currents on Seeking Alpha »

Q&A for Extended Trading

What is the Nasdaq-100 Pre-Market Indicator^SM?
A question asked every day by investors and the financial news media is “Will the market open up or down today?” The Nasdaq-100 Pre-Market Indicator is an index of trading activity based on pre-market open prices. The PMI was developed by nasdaq.com to help gauge pre-market trends leading into the trading day as a predictor of opening prices.

What is the Nasdaq-100 After Hours Indicator^SM?
The Nasdaq-100 After Hours Indicator is also an index of trading activity. The AHI is based on extended trading prices during the after hours market, 4:00 to 6:30 p.m. ET.

How would the Nasdaq-100 Indicators be used?
Historically, limited information sources have been available to gauge market sentiment during extended trading, leading into or after regular market hours trading. Resources have been pretty much limited to observation of trading activity in individual stocks or futures contracts.

Now, with the PMI and AHI, it’s possible to get a big pre-market or after hours market picture based on actual trading data.

How representative of the market as a whole are the Nasdaq-100 Indicators?
The Nasdaq-100 Index has, since its inception, been one of the most frequently used gauges of the marketplace and is widely considered to be a good barometer of the market as a whole. With the same calculation as the Nasdaq-100 Index but using pre-market or after hours prices, the Nasdaq-100 Indicators offer a helpful measure — indicating extended trading trends.

How are the Nasdaq-100 Pre-Market and After Hours Indicators calculated?
The Indicators are minute by minute calculations during extended hours trading, using the same calculation used for the Nasdaq-100 Index during regular market hours.

• The Pre-Market Indicator is calculated based on last sale prices of Nasdaq-100 securities during pre-market trading, 8:00 to 9:30 a.m. ET. If a Nasdaq-100 security does not trade during the pre-market, the calculation uses last sale from the previous day 4 p.m. closing price.
• The After Hours Indicator is calculated based on last sale prices of Nasdaq-100 securities during after hours trading, 4:00 to 6:30 p.m. ET. And if a Nasdaq-100 security does not trade in the after hours market, the calculation uses last sale price from that day’s 4 p.m. closing.

How was the quality of the Nasdaq-100 Pre-Market and After Hours Indicators evaluated?
Nasdaq Economic Research performed an analysis of the methodology for calculating the Indicators’ values and determined that the methodology is consistent with calculation of the Nasdaq-100 Index during regular market hours and has shown good continuity with prices at open and close of regular market hours.

Learn more about pre-market and after-hours stock trading in our Learning Markets area.