They always say basis points... I'm embarrassed to say I still have no idea what that means. Just goes to show you, you don't really have to understand anything to make money in this game...dumb money can make money being dumb.
It seems you are not a newb but do you think traders, seriously ones, give a fack about the ignorant business media how they frame a ............. story? Of course individual traders care about points moved while in a trade, but percentage moves the indices make overall matter more. Recently when ES was @ 5500 a 5% move up/down =275 points Back when it was @ 2500 x 5% = 125 points The only way to compare current moves with older ones is by percentage.
Relax. Percentage drop is important. My response is to the first poster who was raging that no one cares about point drop. Obviously both are important.
Can't read that other posters mind but believe they were meaning - percentage not point drop for Globex, day session, combined? He's right. All the indexes were down -2% or more yesterday. WTF does S&P being down by X points, NDX by Y points and Dow by Z points mean to anyone overall? The right way to compare them to each other and overall market (throw in RUT, W5000, etc) is by percent.