07/25/2008 (10:21 am)
Nasdaq index coming to Ireland
The Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. will introduce the Nasdaq OMX Ireland Index on July 28, 2008.
CEO Bob Greifeld announced the index at the Business & Finance US-Ireland Business awards lunch Thursday in New York. "The Nasdaq OMX Ireland Index will provide investors with a benchmark to track companies in a country that has experience consistently high levels of economic growth," Greifeld said.
Invesco PowerShares Capital Management LLC, which provides exchange-traded funds (ETFs), will develop an ETF based on the new Ireland index and will list it on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
The Ireland Index will be calculated in real-time across combined exchanges in dollars and it will start with a value of 250.000. It will consist of 23 components and have a market capitalization of $97 billion.
Major companies that will be listed include Ryanair Holdings, a successful European budget airline, and Skillsoft Corp payday loans.
This comes just one month after Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty, which would have served as a constitution for the European Union. French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner warned that "Ireland would be the first to suffer from a no vote" on the treaty.
The new Nasdaq index seems to belie claims that the Emerald Isle will suffer financially for the vote.