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The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) is the oldest stock exchange in Asia and the first
in India. Established in 1875 as an AOP (Association of Persons), BSE is now a corporatised
and demutualised entity incorporated under the provisions of the Companies Act,
1956. With demutualisation, BSE has Deutsche Börse and Singapore Exchange as its
strategic partners, two of world's best managed exchanges.
The BSE is situated at Dalal Street in Mumbai and has over 5,000 companies that
are listed on it. The BSE uses the latest technologies in the IT field to provide
a single place where traders from across the world can buy and sell shares in the
Indian share market.
Today, BSE is the world's number one exchange in terms of the number of listed companies
and the world's fifth in transaction numbers. The market capitalization as on August
31, 2009 stood at USD 1.09 trillion. For easy reference, the companies listed on
the BSE are classified into A, B, S, T and Z groups.
BSE also offered India's first stock market index the Sensex (Sensitive index).
It is an index of 30 stocks representing 12 major sectors. The Sensex is constructed
on a 'free-float' methodology, and is sensitive to movement of its constituents
and market sentiments. Apart from the SENSEX, the BSE offers 21 indices, including
12 sectoral indices.
Due to an index cooperation agreement with Deutsche Börse the SENSEX and other BSE
indices are available to investors in Europe and America. Barclays Global Investors
through its iShares® brand, has created an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) which tracks
the SENSEX. The ETF enables investors in Hong Kong to take an exposure to the Indian
equity market.
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