The CAC 40 () () is a
benchmark French
stock market index
In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an Index (economics), index that measures the performance of a stock market, or of a subset of a stock market. It helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calcul ...
. The index represents a capitalization-weighted measure of the 40 most significant stocks among the 100 largest
market caps on the
Euronext Paris
Euronext Paris, formerly known as the Paris Bourse (), is a regulated securities trading venue in France. It is Europe's second largest stock exchange by market capitalization, behind the London Stock Exchange, as of December 2023. As of 2022, th ...
(formerly the Paris Bourse). It is a
price return index. It is one of the main national indices of the pan-European stock exchange group
Euronext
Euronext N.V. (short for European New Exchange Technology) is a European bourse that provides trading and post-trade services for a range of financial instruments.
Traded assets include regulated equities, exchange-traded funds (ETF), warrant ...
alongside
Euronext Amsterdam
Euronext Amsterdam is a stock exchange based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Formerly known as the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (), it merged on 22 September 2000 with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext. The re ...
's
AEX,
Euronext Brussels'
BEL20,
Euronext Dublin's
ISEQ 20,
Euronext Lisbon
Euronext Lisbon is a stock exchange in Lisbon, Portugal. It is part of Euronext pan-European exchange. The most famous index is PSI-20.
Euronext Lisbon trades equities, public and private bonds, participation bonds, warrants, corporate warrant ...
's
PSI-20
The PSI-20 (an acronym of Portuguese Stock Index) is a benchmark stock market index of companies that trade on Euronext Lisbon, the main stock exchange of Portugal. The index tracks the prices of the twenty listings with the largest market capita ...
and the
Oslo Bors OBX Index.
It is an index without dividends.
Cotation operates every working day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. It is updated every 15 seconds.
History
The CAC 5 and the CAC 40 take their name from the
Paris Bourse
Euronext Paris, formerly known as the Paris Bourse (), is a regulated securities trading venue in France. It is Europe's second largest stock exchange by market capitalization, behind the London Stock Exchange, as of December 2023. As of 2022, th ...
's early automation system
Cotation Assistée en Continu
Cotation Assistée en Continu (CAC) was an electronic trading system used at the Paris Bourse, the French stock exchange, in the 1980s and 1990s.
History
It was introduced in 1986 for trading less liquid equities, and in 1989 it was operational ...
(Continuous Assisted Quotation). CAC 5, inaugurated on 23 June 1986, was a version of the Toronto Computer Assisted Trading System, the first fully automated trading system. CAC 5 consisted of Leroy-Somer, LVMH, Synthélabo, Eurocom and UCB. CAC 40's base value of 1,000 was set on 31 December 1987, equivalent to a market capitalisation of 370,437,433,957.70
French franc
The franc (; , ; currency sign, sign: F or Fr), also commonly distinguished as the (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amoun ...
s.
On 1 December 2003, the index's weighting system switched from being dependent on total market capitalisation to
free float
In the context of stock markets, the public float or free float represents the portion of Share (finance), shares of a corporation that are in the hands of public investors as opposed to locked-in shares held by promoters, company officers, control ...
market cap only, in line with other leading indices.
Rules
Selection
The CAC 40 index composition is reviewed quarterly by an independent Index Steering Committee ().
If any changes are made, they are
effected a minimum of two weeks after the review meeting.
At each review date, the companies listed on Euronext Paris are ranked according to
free float
In the context of stock markets, the public float or free float represents the portion of Share (finance), shares of a corporation that are in the hands of public investors as opposed to locked-in shares held by promoters, company officers, control ...
market capitalisation
Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders.
Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by ...
and
share turnover over the prior 12 months.
From the top 100 companies in this ranking, forty are chosen to enter the CAC 40 such that it is "a relevant benchmark for
portfolio management" and "a suitable underlying asset for
derivatives products".
If a company has more than one class of shares traded on the exchange, only the most actively traded of these will be accepted into the index (generally this will be the ordinary share).
Weighting
The CAC 40 is a
capitalization-weighted index
A capitalization-weighted (or cap-weighted) index, also called a market-value-weighted index is a stock market index whose components are weighted according to the total market value of their outstanding shares. Every day an individual stock's ...
. The number of shares issued (used to calculate the market cap and hence the index weight) of a company is reviewed quarterly, on the third Friday of March, June, September and December.
Since December 2003, the index weightings of companies in the index have been capped at 15% at each quarterly index review,
but these range freely with
share price
A share price is the price of a single share of a number of saleable equity shares of a company.
In layman's terms, the stock price is the highest amount someone is willing to pay for the stock, or the lowest amount that it can be bought for.
B ...
subsequently. A capping factor is used to limit the weights to 15% (if necessary), and is reviewed annually by the Index Steering Committee on the third Friday of September.
Calculation
The index value I of the CAC 40 index is calculated using the following formula:
with ''t'' the day of calculation; ''N'' the number of constituent shares in the index (usually 40); ''Q
i,t'' the number of shares of company ''i'' on day ''t''; ''F
i,t'' the free float factor of share ''i''; ''f
i,t'' the capping factor of share ''i'' (exactly 1 for all companies not subject to the 15% cap); ''C
i,t'' the price of share ''i'' on day ''t''; ''Q
i,0'' the number of shares of company ''i'' on the index base date; ''C
i,0'' the price of equity ''i'' on the index base date; and ''K
t'' the "adjustment coefficient for base capitalization" on day ''t'' (reflecting the switch from the French franc to the
Euro
The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...
in 1999).
Contract specifications
The CAC 40 index is traded as a future on the Euronext Equities & Index Derivatives (EUREID) exchange under the ticker symbol PIL.
Holders
Although the CAC 40 is almost exclusively composed of French-domiciled companies, about 45% of its listed shares are owned by foreign investors, more than any other main European index. German, Japanese, American and British investors are amongst the most significant holders of CAC 40 shares. This large percentage is due to the fact that CAC 40 companies are more international, or
multinational, than any other European market. CAC 40 companies conduct over two-thirds of their business and employ over two-thirds of their
workforce
In macroeconomics, the workforce or labour force is the sum of people either working (i.e., the employed) or looking for work (i.e., the unemployed):
\text = \text + \text
Those neither working in the marketplace nor looking for work are out ...
outside France.
Record values
Source:
Annual returns
The following table shows the annual development of the CAC 40, which was calculated back to 1969.
Composition
The index consists of the following companies as of the quarterly update effective September 2024.
The most recent composition can be found on the
Euronext
Euronext N.V. (short for European New Exchange Technology) is a European bourse that provides trading and post-trade services for a range of financial instruments.
Traded assets include regulated equities, exchange-traded funds (ETF), warrant ...
website.
"CAC 40"
Euronext.
See also
* :CAC 40
* CAC Next 20
The CAC Next 20 is an index of security prices used with the Euronext Paris or Euronext Amsterdam. It gathers the 20 companies whose market capitalizations are ranked after those of the 40 companies who compose the CAC 40. These 20 are possible ...
* List of French companies
France is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in western Europe, as well as Overseas France, several overseas regions and territories. A member of the Group of Seven, Group of 7 (formerly G8) leading industrialised countries ...
*List of largest French companies
This article lists the largest companies in France in terms of their revenue, net profit and total assets, according to the American business magazines '' Fortune'' and ''Forbes''.
2024 ''Fortune'' list
This list displays all 24 French compani ...
References
*
External links
Official Euronext page for CAC 40 Index
CAC 40 ESG Index
official Euronext product page
FCHI: Summary for CAC 40 INDEX – Yahoo! Finance
Bloomberg page for CAC:IND
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cac 40
European stock market indices
French stock market indices
Lists of companies of France
1987 establishments in France