Ftse Index To Be Calculated Every Minute

The FTSE All-Share Index, the main benchmark for measuring fund managers performance in UK equities, is being calculated every minute of the trading day. Until now, it has been updated only at the end of the days trading.The index is owned and managed by FTSE International, a joint venture between the Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange.

The move reflects increasing demand for monitoring of portfolio risk throughout the day.

The All-Share Index, which was launched in 1962, covers some 98 per cent of UK quoted stocks. Britains first real time, or constantly updated, share index was the FTSE 100, founded in 1984, which consists of the largest UK companies by market capitalisation. It was created because the futures and options markets needed an index on which to deal. The move by the All-Share to real time calculation will not lead to the creation of derivatives products because the large number of index constituents makes it impractical. From tomorrow, the FT will report the hourly movements of the All-Share in the FTSE Actuaries Share Indices table which appears on the back page of this section. This table will include hourly movements in the FTSE SmallCap index, which covers the smaller constituents of the All-Share. We are also moving our statistics on the FTSE Aim index, currently found in the panel headed London Equities, to this table, and are adding coverage of the FTSE 350 index ex-Investment Trusts, and the All-Share

index ex-Investment Trusts. To make space for these improvements, we have stopped coverage of the FTSE 350 industry baskets. Readers seeking further information on these baskets should contact FTSE International on 0171 448 1810. Copyright Financial Times Limited 1997.