CAC 40 Index

16/11/2023 - 14:50PM CET

The national benchmark dedicated to the French market.

Why invest in the CAC 40?

The iconic CAC 40® Index is Euronext’s most widely used index and offers diversified sectorial coverage, ideal for various investment strategies. It is a free float market capitalisation weighted index that reflects the performance of the 40 largest and most actively traded shares listed on Euronext Paris.

The CAC 40 is part of a larger index family of products matching the needs of the market which encourage savings from both French and foreign investors to be invested in French companies and for 30 years has served millions of institutional (banks, asset management firms, etc.) and retail clients in the development of investment strategies and the creation of products such as:

Thousands of products with CAC 40® as underlying: Warrants, Certificates, ETFs, Futures, Options.
The CAC 40® future is the second most traded national derivatives product in Europe

About the CAC 40 index

CAC 40® stands for “Cotation Assistée en Continu 40” (continuous stock quotation).

The name was chosen to make a link with the previous name of the Paris stock exchange, “Companies des Agents de Change”.

The launch of the index coincided with the French stock market switching to electronic trading in 1986:

31 December 1987: the value of the index was fixed at 1,000 points
15 June 1988: official launch of the index

The CAC 40® index was created by the Société des Bourses Françaises (SBF) and the name of the French exchange at the time. The index was originally created to support the futures market (MATIF) and the options market (MONEP).

An earlier name for the CAC 40® was to be the ION 40 which stands for “Indice Options négociables” (traded options index).
The CAC 40® was created according to international standards for options indices. Its aim was to be a fixed point of reference for investors.

Euronext is the administrator of the CAC ® index family covering all French listed companies, from large caps to small and mid-caps, designed to meet the needs of investors: CAC Next 20, CAC Large 60, CAC Mid 60, SBF 120 CAC Small, CAC Mid & Small, and CAC All-Tradable.

The Euronext Biodiversity Screened World Index offers opportunities for a large range of investment vehicles such as ETFs, funds and structured products.