what is the financial times stock exchange group ftse 
the financial times stock exchange ftse now known as ftse russell group is a british financial organization that specializes in providing index offerings for the global financial markets the london stock exchange group lseg owns the ftse russell group in addition to the ftse russell group the lseg also owns borsa italiana millennium it and other financial brands 1the indexing division of the ftse is similar to that of standard poor s it specializes in creating index offerings that the global financial markets can use as benchmarks an index is comprised of a hypothetical portfolio of stock holdings so it can act as a representation of the performance of a particular market segment also called a benchmark although the ftse offers many indexes its two most well known indexes are the ftse 100 which is comprised of the most highly capitalized blue chip stocks listed on the london stock exchange and the russell 2000 index a small cap stock market index of the smallest 2 000 stocks in the russell 3000 index understanding the financial times stock exchange group ftse the ftse russell group established in 2015 after the merger of ftse and russell investments is a u k based global provider of benchmark financial indexes market data and analytics the ftse s indexes are available across asset classes styles and strategies and are designed to meet the needs of a wide variety of clients including buy side sell side custodians asset owners exchanges investment consultants and exchange traded fund etf providers 1the ftse 100 indexthe ftse 100 is very widely used in europe at its creation in jan 1984 the index had a base level of 1 000 it has since reached highs of over 7 000 many market analysts traders and investors look to the ftse 100 as a proxy for the performance of the wider u k stock market similar to the way that many u s investors look to the dow jones or the s p 500 indexes 2the level of the ftse 100 is calculated using the total market capitalization of the constituent companies and the index value total market capitalization changes alongside individual share prices of the indexed companies throughout the trading day so the index value also changes when the ftse 100 is quoted up or down it is measured against the previous day s market close it is calculated continuously on every trading day from 8 00 a m at the market opening until the 4 30 p m lse close a ftse 100 decline means the value of the largest u k listed companies has decreased when the ftse hits a new high it means the total worth of all the indexed companies has increased readjustment of the index constituents the companies that make up the ftse 100 happens every quarter usually the wednesday following the first friday in march june september and december any changes to the underlying index constituents and their weighting come from the values of the companies taken at the close of business the night before the review 3as of june 26 2023 the top five ftse 100 holdings by market cap were 4the ftse 100 is often considered a leading indicator of prosperity for companies in the u k and the u k economy in general as such it typically draws investors looking for exposure to big u k companies while several of its listings do include companies with homes outside of the u k it is most significantly made up of u k companies and impacted by u k daily developments other ftse group indicesas mentioned there are a prolific number of indexes attached to the ftse group and the ftse russell brand the ftse group s most popular indexes in addition to the ftse 100 are the ftse 250 the ftse 350 and the ftse all share some of the other popular ftse russell indices include investing in the ftsethough you cannot directly invest in an index you can invest in funds that replicate track or even short the ftse index many of these are exchange traded funds etfs that allow for easy access to the indices examples of funds that track these indices that you can invest in are the vanguard ftse 100 the vanguard ftse 250 the ishares 350 u k equity index fund the ishares core ftse 100 and the vanguard ftse u k all share index unit trust 