Vienna Stock Exchange (VSE) said on March 28 it launched a new country index - the Bulgarian Traded Index (BTX), which will track the performance of seven most actively and highly capitalised shares on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange.

The seven companies are holding company Chimimport, First Investment Bank, Corporate Commercial Bank, insurer Eurohold Bulgaria, Industrial Holding Bulgaria, car battery maker Monbat and mining company Kaolin, with a combined market capitalisation of 593.9 million euro on March 27.

BTX is the 33rd index calculated by the Vienna Stock Exchange and 22nd of the indices that track national, regional or sector trends in Central and Southeast Europe, the bourse said in a statement.
"The regional exchanges directly profit from the joint index projects with the Vienna Stock Exchange because of the boost in trading volumes. For example, for this reason, between 2006 to 2007 more than 250 million euro was invested in companies listed on the Romanian Stock Exchange as a direct result of the index cooperation between the Vienna Stock Exchange and the Bucharest Stock Exchange," the statement read.

BTX will be calculated and distributed in real time, using three currencies - Bulgarian lev, euro and US dollars. Capitalisation and weighted price were the two main calculation criteria and no company would be allowed to account for more than one quarter of the index. Currently, Chimimport has the biggest weight in the index at 23 per cent and Kaolin had the smallestweight - 7.3 per cent.

As a tradable index, it can be used as an underlying for standardised derivatives such as futures and options, and for structured products. Its parameters would be reviewed every quarter and its composition - every six months, in March and September.

The starting value was defined at 1000 points on 3 January 2005. On March 28 2008, it closed trading 0.38 per cent down at 4890.39 points.