Research Paper on:
Fluctuations in Interest Rates and the Standard and Poors 500 Over a Thirty Year Period

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Standard & Poors first began providing company information for investors in the mid-19th century. It was a time that there was little information gathered into  one place, and investors virtually were at the mercy of organizations with the need to take at face value what those organizations chose to tell them about their business results.  This was long before the advent of the first corporations, and businesses were under little regulatory obligation to disclose any information. Organizations are obligated to furnish much more  information to investors today, both in volume and in detail. The S&P 500 is more useful than ever in providing a view of the performance of the stock market.  Interest rates are of immeasurable importance in the overall health of the national economy, of course. Manipulation of interest rates is done  at the discretion of the Federal Reserve Board, the US central bank. The Fed raises interest rates in the face of rising inflation or to slow the economy when  it is expanding at too rapid a rate. It lowers interest rates in times of slower growth as a measure to stimulate the economy. The purpose here is  to discover if there is a link between the movement of interest rates and the movement of the value of the S&P 500.  Market Indices Today, the S&P 500 is only one of the companys indices of stock performance. It and the Dow Industrials  provide the two most common - and useful - stock performance indices in existence. In times past, the Dow Industrials gained more attention. It is, as its name