History of Indian Stock Exchange:

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) is known as the oldest exchange in Asia. It traces its history to the 1850s, when stockbrokers would gather under banyan trees in front of Mumbai’s Town Hall. The location of these meetings changed many times, as the number of brokers constantly increased. The group eventually moved to Dalal Street in 1874 and in 1875 became an official organization known as ‘The Native Share & Stock Brokers Association’. In 1956, the BSE became the first stock exchange to be recognized by the Indian Government under the Securities Contracts Regulation Act.

The Bombay Stock Exchange developed the BSE Sensex in 1986, giving the BSE a means to measure overall performance of the exchange. In 2000 the BSE used this index to open its derivatives market, trading Sensex futures contracts. The development of Sensex options along with equity derivatives followed in 2001 and 2002, expanding the BSE’s trading platform.

Historically an open-cry floor trading exchange, the Bombay Stock Exchange switched to an electronic trading system in 1995. It took the exchange only fifty days to make this transition.

Capital market reforms in India and the launch of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) accelerated the integration of the second Indian stock exchange called the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in 1992. After a few years of operations, the NSE has become the largest stock exchange in India.

Three segments of the NSE trading platform were established one after another. The Wholesale Debt Market (WDM) commenced operations in June 1994 and the Capital Market (CM) segment was opened at the end of 1994. Finally, the Futures and Options segment began operating in 2000. Today the NSE takes the 14th position in the top 40 futures exchanges in the world.

In 1996, the National Stock Exchange of India launched S&P CNX Nifty and CNX Junior Indices that make up 100 most liquid stocks in India. CNX Nifty is a diversified index of 50 stocks from 25 different economy sectors. The Indices are owned and managed by India Index Services and Products Ltd (IISL) that has a consulting and licensing agreement with Standard & Poor’s.

In 1998, the National Stock Exchange of India launched its web-site and was the first exchange in India that started trading stock on the Internet in 2000. The NSE has also proved its leadership in the Indian financial market by gaining many awards such as ‘Best IT Usage Award’ by Computer Society in India (in 1996 and 1997) and CHIP Web Award by CHIP magazine (1999).