Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), Singapore Exchange (SGX) and FTSE Group (FTSE) are pleased to announce the launch today of a new index within the FTSE ST Index series.
The FTSE ST China Top Index is a tradable index that currently tracks the 20 largest China stocks listed on SGX. To be eligible for inclusion in the new index, companies must have either at least 30% ownership by the Chinese government, companies or nationals; or derive at least 50% of revenues from China.
The inclusion of the new revenue criterion allows companies that were previously not eligible for the existing FTSE ST China Index to be included in the new FTSE ST China Top Index. Such companies include Ferrochina, Hsu Fu Chi International and Yanlord Land Group.
“The FTSE ST China Top Index is created in response to demand from institutional investors and fund managers in China and around the world for an index that will give them instant exposure to a smaller, readily tradable basket of highly liquid Singapore-listed China stocks. This is part of our commitment to making the FTSE ST Index series a comprehensive barometer of the Singapore securities market,” said Mr Ignatius Low, Money Editor of The Straits Times newspaper under SPH.
Both the FTSE ST China Index and the FTSE ST China Top Index will offer opportunities for the creation of and investment into China index-linked products, including exchange traded funds (ETFs), structured products and other derivatives. The FTSE ST China Index, with its larger basket of 50 component stocks, will continue to act as a general market barometer of the state of China companies listed here.
Companies in both indices are selected based on their market capitalisation levels as of 20 June 2008. They are subject to the same index calculation methodology, free float weighting and liquidity screening criteria as the revamped Straits Times Index (STI) and other FTSE ST indices which were launched on 10 January 2008.
The full list of the new index's constituents is at Annex 1.
The FTSE ST China Top Index will be added to the real-time, intra-day values of the STI and other FTSE ST indices displayed at the following websites:
SPH http://btstocks.asiaone.com/keyIndices.html
SGX http://www.sgx.com
NextView http://www.investasiaonline.com
ShareInvestor http://www.shareinvestor.com and http://www.listedcompany.com
FTSE will also display the end-of-day index values on its website at http://www.ftse.com/st
The FTSE ST China Top Index will also be covered by Xinhua Finance Limited, China’s premier financial information and media service provider, with whom SGX is working to profile the component stocks of the FTSE ST China Index. Xinhua Finance will report regularly on the China companies listed on SGX that make up both China-themed indices through the “FTSE ST China Index Stock Alerts” e-mail service. Subscribers will be able to receive the latest news and exclusive C-level interviews on their desktop computers or mobile devices. Details of this free news service are available on SGX’s website at http://www.sgx.com/ftsestchina
FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index:
SPH, SGX And FTSE Launch New FTSE ST China Top Index
Date 07/07/2008
