BSE Sensex

BSE Sensex is the short form of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex, the barometer of India’s stock market fortunes. It was launched on January 2, 1986 with 30 most actively traded stocks of that period, with 1979 as the base year.

It is the biggest stock exchange in the world on the basis of number of listed companies. But not all stocks are actively traded. Even fewer are significant pointers of the trends in the market and the economy.

At the launch of the Sensex, the Bombay Stock Exchange had said that "the absence of an index number of equity prices to reflect the general trend of the market was felt for a long time by investors and also by newspapers who do not compile their own index numbers”.

From its early days in 1986, the Sensex has traveled a long way and has increased by nearly 35 times to the present. On the first day of trading on April 1, 1986, the Sensex had closed at 549.43. It opened its silver jubilee year trading at 17,467.

The composition of the index too has undergone change many times as only 11 of the original 30 companies continue to be part of the Sensex.

In 1986, Sensex comprised – ACC, Bombay Dyeing, Ballarpur Industries, Ceat Tyres, Century Spinning, Food Specialities (now Nestle), Great Eastern Shipping, GSFC, Glaxo, Gwalior Rayon (now Grasim), Hindustan Aluminium (now Hindalco), Hindustan Lever,(now Hindustan Unilever) Hindustan Motors, Indian Hotels, Indian Rayon, ITC, Kirloskar Cummins, Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra, Mukand, Pieco Electronics (now Philips), Premier Automobile, Reliance Industries, Siemens, TELCO (now Tata Motors), Tata Power, Tata Steel, Voltas, Zenith. The composition has considerably changed, which in itself narrates the new dimension acquired by the Indian corporate sector.

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