Financial Times - Indices

Indices

The Financial Times collates and publishes a number of financial market indices, which reflect the changing value of the constituents. The longest running of these was the former Financial News Index, started on 1 July 1935 by the Financial News. The FT published a similar index, which was replaced by the Financial News Index—and the Financial News Index was then renamed the Financial Times (FT) Index on 1 January 1947. The index started as an index of industrial shares, and companies with dominant overseas interests were excluded, such as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP), British-American Tobacco, Lever Brothers (later Unilever) and Shell. The oil and financial sectors were included decades later.

The FTSE All-Share Index, the first one of the FTSE series of indices, was created in 1962, comprising the largest 594 UK companies by market capitalisation. The letters F-T-S-E represent that FTSE is a joint venture between the Financial Times (F-T) and the London Stock Exchange (S-E). On 13 February 1984 the FTSE 100 was introduced, representing about eighty percent of the London Stock Exchange's value. In 1995 FTSE Group was made an independent company. The first of several overseas offices was opened in New York City in 1999, Paris in early 2000, and Hong Kong, Frankfurt, and San Francisco in 2001. Madrid was opened 2002, and Tokyo in 2003.

Other well-known FTSE indices include the FTSE 350 Index, the FTSE SmallCap Index, the FTSE AIM UK 50 Index and FTSE AIM 100 Index as well as the FTSE AIM All-Share Index for stocks, and the FTSE UK Gilt Indices for government bonds.