SENSEX for NEWBIES!

The Sensex is an "index". What is an index? An index is basically an indicator. It gives you a general idea about whether most of the stocks have gone up or most of the stocks have gone down. The Sensex is an indicator of all the major companies of the BSE ( Bombay Stock Exchange). The Nifty is an indicator of all the major companies of the NSE( National Stock Exchange) for example Satyam, Infosys & Wipro are listed both in NSE and BSE. If the Sensex goes up, it means that the prices of the stocks of most of the major companies on the BSE have gone up. If the Sensex goes down, this tells you that the stock price of most of the major stocks on the BSE have gone down. Just like the Sensex represents the top stocks of the BSE, the Nifty represents the top stocks of the NSE. The Sensex is calculated taking into consideration stock prices of 30 different BSE listed companies. It is calculated using the “free-float market capitalization” method. This is a world wide accepted method as one of the best methods for calculating a stock market index. The method used for calculating the Sensex and the 30 companies that are taken into consideration are changed from time to time. This is done to make the Sensex an accurate index and so that it represents the BSE stocks properly. Market cap or market capitalization is simply the worth of a company in terms of its shares! To put it in a simple way, if you were to buy all the shares of a particular company, what is the amount you would have to pay? That amount is called the “market capitalization”! For eg: Satyam has a market capitalization of approximately 8 Billion US Dollars.