The Warsaw Stock Exchange released a statement yesterday in which they announced the formation of a new equity index which will include the largest and most liquid stocks listed on the exchanges of the Visegrad Group countries, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia.

The index portfolio will include more than 100 of the most liquid stocks of companies listed on Central and Eastern European exchanges in Bratislava, Bucharest, Budapest, Ljubljana, Prague, Warsaw and Zagreb. Stocks participating in the index have to meet the liquidity criterion: average value of trading per session of at least EUR 90,000 in six months period. The participation of stocks in the index will depend on their free float and will be capped according to the 5/10/40 rule (i.e. participation of the biggest stock is capped at 10%, aggregate participation of stocks weighing more than 5% is capped at 40%). The participation of stocks from any single country in the index portfolio will be capped at 50% (in practice, the cap applies only to stocks listed on GPW).

Note that two Croatian and four Slovenian companies have been included in the index thus far. The Croatian representatives are HT and Valamar, while Slovenian companies include Krka, NLB, Petrol and Triglav. To view all the remaining index constituents please click here.