Founded in 1875 as “The Native Share & Stock Brokers Association,” the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) is the oldest stock exchange in Asia.  Located on Dalal Street, which is eponymous after the fashion of Wall Street, the BSE’s humble beginnings were early stockbroker meetings under banyan trees on Horniman Circle.  After moving twice, the Exchange settled into its current location on Dalal Street.

In terms of the number of listed companies, the BSE is the largest in the world with over 4800 Indian companies listed on the Exchange.  In October of 2007, the market capitalization of the listings on the BSE was approximately $1.6 trillion US.  At that time, the BSE was the tenth largest stock exchange in the world. The Bombay Stock Exchange could list on itw own market this year. See full article from FT.com in News section. The Indian version of the Dow Jones Industrial Average is the Sensex, a benchmark index of the thirty largest and most actively traded stocks on the BSE.  The Sensex was created in 1986 and is the oldest stock index in India.  The Sensex has returned over 400% since 2004.

In 2001, the BSE launched the Dollex-30, the dollar version of the BSE-30 shares of the Sensex.  The following chart helps to show how the relative increase of the rupee/dollar has helped the performance of India investments.