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London Stock Exchange celebrates 30th anniversary of the FTSE 250 Index, the big index for UK mid-caps

Today, London Stock Exchange markets were opened by FTSE Russell (An LSEG Business) and market participants from the UK equities ecosystem to mark the 30th anniversary of the FTSE 250 Index.

The big index for UK mid-caps

On 12 October 1992, the FTSE 250 Index was launched, marking the start of a new era for market participants who wanted to benchmark their investments to mid-cap UK equities.

Arne Staal, Group Head of Benchmarks & Indices, CEO of FTSE Russell commented:

“The FTSE 250 Index has come a long way in 30 years - it is now a prominent member of the "establishment" within FTSE Russell’s line-up of indexes. Robust in its ability to mirror a dynamic segment of "UK PLC," the index is trusted and used daily by the community of asset managers, asset owners, brokers and investment banks in the City and globally.”

The UK’s leading mid-cap benchmark enters its fourth decade

The FTSE 250 index is a member of the FTSE UK Equity index series, a suite of indices designed to measure the performance of the UK equity market. The FTSE UK Equity index series represents the performance of all eligible companies listed on the London Stock Exchange’s main market.

Modular in nature, the series provides market participants with a complementary set of benchmarks that measure the performance of all the market’s size and industry segments. When added to the FTSE 100 index of large-cap stocks, the FTSE 250 mid-cap index makes up the FTSE 350 index (large- and mid-caps). The FTSE SmallCap index then includes those stocks from the FTSE All-Share index that are not large enough to enter the FTSE 350. The FTSE All-Share index is the combination of the FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and FTSE SmallCap indices. It aggregates around 98-99 percent of the UK equity market’s capitalisation.

From the outset, the governance of the FTSE UK Equity index series has been the responsibility of both internal and external experts.

The original designers of the FT-Actuaries All-Share index were members of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the statistical department of the Financial Times.

In 1993 the London Stock Exchange, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the Financial Times became jointly responsible for the new FTSE UK Equity index series, including the All-Share index. All three parties appointed members to a steering committee that worked with representatives of the UK’s investment community to set the rules used to select constituents.

Many of the UK index committee’s decisions were ground-breaking: for example, in 2001, the FTSE UK index series pioneered the concept of adjusting for companies’ ‘free float’ by the application of investability weightings to index constituents’ share totals. FTSE’s global equity indices were soon also adjusted for free float, and this method is now standard in equity index calculation.

The involvement of external experts in the oversight of the All-Share Index continues to this day, although the day-to-day work of managing the index series is now in the hands of professionals at FTSE Russell.

Did you know?

  • The index launch date was 12 October 1992
  • The record high of the FTSE 250 total return index was 19,523.69 on 6 September 2021
  • The record low of the FTSE 250 total return index was 821.64 on 15 October 1992
  • The longest consecutive losing streak (based on quarterly returns) was -42.21% between Q2 2007 and Q4 2008
  • The longest consecutive winning streak (based on quarterly returns) was 113.13% between Q2 2003 and Q1 2006
  • The all-time record daily value traded was £3.25bn on 19 September 2008
  • The largest daily rise was 8.37% on 24 March 2020
  • The largest daily fall was -9.28% on 12 March 2020
  • Eight LSE-listed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) track the FTSE 250
  • The first ETF launch was the iShares FTSE 250 UCITS ETF on 26 March 2004
  • 44 companies in the index have green revenues, measured by FTSE Russell’s green revenues data model
  • The greenest constituent is Impax Environmental Markets
  • There are 74 closed-end investment companies (investment trusts) in the index
     

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