Diamonds

Diamonds

Units of interest in the diamonds trust, a unit investment trust that serves as an index to the Dow Jones Industrial Average in that its holdings consist of the 30 component stocks of the Dow.

Diamonds

1. A unit investment trust in which the underlying asset is the Dow Jones Industrial Average. That is, diamonds are shares in a closed-end index fund tracking the DJIA. It is traded on the American Stock Exchange. It operates much like an exchange-traded fund, but, like all unit investment trusts, it has an expiration date, while ETFs do not. Its ticker symbol is DIA.

2. A valuable commodity consisting of very hard gem stones used in jewelry and tools. Diamonds may be traded on any of a number of exchanges. See also: Blood diamonds.

DIAMONDs.

A DIAMOND is an index-based unit investment trust (UIT) that holds the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). It's similar in structure to an exchange traded fund (ETF).

Investors buy shares, or units, of the trust, which is listed on the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) as DIA. The share price changes throughout the day as investors buy and sell, just as share prices of stocks do.

That's in contrast to open-end mutual funds whose share prices change just once a day, when trading in their underlying investments ends for the day.

Part of the appeal of DIAMOND shares is that the trust mirrors the performance of its benchmark index for dramatically less than the cost of buying shares in all 30 stocks in the DJIA.

A DIAMOND share trades at about 1/100 the value of the DJIA. So, for example, if the DJIA is at 11,500, shares in the trust will be priced around $115.