Sensex 101:

Some facts and figures:

• 318 people paid a princely sum of Re.1 and became members of the BSE in 1875.
• The Stock Index or Sensex as we know it was introduced in 1986.
• BSE National Index was later introduced in 1989. This covered 100 stocks at 5 major stock exchanges Mumbai, Calcutta, Delhi, Ahmadabad and Chennai.
• The National Index was later renamed as the BSE 100 index in late 96 and considers only prices listed at BSE.
• The dollar linked version of the BSE index was introduced in 2006.
• In 1994 two index series were launched termed as BSE-200 and Dollex-200.
• BSE 500 and 5 sectoral indices were launched in 1999.
• In 2001 the BSE-PSU, Dollex 30 and the country's first free float index was released named BSE-TECk.
• Now all BSE indices are free float except BSE-PSU.
• Free float index: When the free-float market capitalization of a company is considered for computation of an index it is called free float index.
• Free float market capitalization: The market share is the proportion of the total shares issued by the company which are readily available for trading in the market.
• BSE gives out information on the Price-Earnings ratio, Price to Book Value ratio and Dividend yield percentages on day-to-day basis of all the major indices.
• Value of BSE index is updated on real time basis during trading hours.
• All indices are reviewed periodically by independent finance professional in a committee.

Priyanka S Vaidya