FTSE 100 Index Chart | FTSE 100 Futures Online

UK 100 Futures CFD, based on the FTSE 100 index futures. FTSE 100 is a capitalisation-weighted index of top UK shares.

Technical Analysis FTSE 100 Index Futures

Trade Index CFDs with Plus500

Trade the most popular Indices around the world like USA 500, US-TECH 100 and France 40 with leverage. Magnify the size of your trades without committing large amounts of capital. Leverage of up to 1:20 allows you to start trading CFDs with as little as 100$ to gain the effect of 2000$ capital!

What is a Stock Market Index?

A stock index is a performance indicator or measure of a country's economy or of an industry sector. For example, Nasdaq 100 represents the largest 100 companies traded on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. If, on average, the share price of these companies goes up, then the index will rise. Conversely, if they fall, the index will drop.

Most main indices are based on a basket of shares and are thus considered good measures of the current market sentiment. When you take a position on an index, you are effectively investing in the performance of these shares and thus avoid factors that influence the performance of individual companies (such as a lack of market volume). For a full list of index futures CFD offered on the Plus500 platform, click here.

How Does Leverage Work in Index CFDs?

By trading index futures contracts with leverage, you can multiply the value of a trade through the use of borrowed capital, and as such, you can increase the potential profit or loss to be realised from the trade. The available leverage for index CFDs on the Plus500 platform is up to 1:20.

How do You Start Day Trading on the Stock Market Index?

Follow these steps to start trading stock CFDs with Plus500:

  1. If you don’t already have a Plus500 account, open a Trading Account Here.
  2. Complete your account registration and documents verification, then deposit funds.
  3. To search for a specific index, click into the search bar and type the name or symbol.
  4. Consider placing stop orders in advance: you can define the level of profit you would be happy with and/or the level at which you would like to close out the position should the trend turn against you.
  5. Open a trade.

What Is Financial Times Stock Exchange Group - FTSE?

The Financial Times Stock Exchange Group (FTSE), also known by the nickname of “Footsie,” is an independent organization. It is similar to the Standard & Poor’s, which specializes in creating index offerings for the global financial markets. An index will represent a market segment and is a hypothetical portfolio of stock holdings. The most well-known index, among many at FTSE, is the FTSE 100, which is composed of blue-chip stocks listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) owns the FTSE Group. LSEG is a London-based parent organization which also owns Russell Indexes, Borsa Italiana, MilenniumIT and other financial organizations. In May 2015, LSEG announced the combination of FTSE Group and Russell forming the brand name FTSE Russell.

FTSE 100 as Part of the FTSE Group

Market analysts, traders, and investors will follow the FTSE indices. Perhaps, the two most popular of the many indexes FTSE Russell oversees is the FTSE 100 and the Russell 2000. The FTSE 100 is arguably the most popular and widely used stock market index in Europe. At its creation in January 1984, the index had a base level of 1,000. As of February 2019, it had a level of over 7,000.

Examples for FTSE 100 Investing

The FTSE 100 includes the largest 100 companies which list on the LSE and represents about 80% of the total market capitalization of the exchange. FTSE 100 is a market-cap weighted index. Market-cap weighting means individual stocks which have a higher market capitalization represent a correspondingly higher weight in the index. The FTSE Group manages the FTSE 100 which uses real-time calculations for its value. The index updates and publishes every 15 seconds.

Readjustment of the index constituents, or companies which make up the FTSE 100, happens every quarter, usually the Wednesday following the first Friday in March, June, September, and December. Any changes to the underlying index constituents and their weighting comes from the values of the companies taken at the close of business the night before the review.

The FTSE 100 is often considered a leading indicator of prosperity for the United Kingdom (UK) companies and the UK economy in general. As such it typically draws investors looking for exposure to big UK companies. While several of its listings do include companies with homes outside of the UK, it is most significantly made up of UK companies and impacted by UK daily developments.

Other FTSE Group Indexes

As mentioned, there are a prolific number of indexes attached to the FTSE Group and the FTSE Russell brand. The FTSE Group's most popular index in addition to the FTSE 100 is the FTSE 250, the FTSE 350 and the FTSE All-Share. All four of these indexes have index fund offerings in the Vanguard FTSE 100 (VUKE), Vanguard FTSE 250 (VMID), the iShares 350 UK Equity Index Fund and the Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Unit Trust.

Real World Example

As mentioned earlier, the FTSE 100 is a market-cap weighted index. Companies near the top of the market cap list often attract the most attention. As an example, consider the impact of BP PLC (BP.L) on the index. According to The Irish Independent, BP which ranks fourth in market cap reported a strong fourth-quarter earnings report which helped to lift its stock price nearly 1% while the value of the FTSE 100 climbed almost 2% on February 5, 2019.