The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has been given the green light for the US launch of a futures contract based on the BSE's Sensitive Index (Sensex).

THE CFTC's Office of General Counsel issued a no-action letter on 14 June, 2006, effectively clearing the contract for offer and sale in the US.

The Sensex is a broad-based, free-float market capitalization-weighted index designed to reflect the overall performance of the Indian equity market. Owned and managed by BSE, it consists of 30 of the most highly capitalized and actively traded stocks currently listed on the excahnge. Based on data supplied by BSE, the total market capitalization of the Sensex was approximately USD 270.0 billion and the 'free float' market capitalization was approximately USD 129.4 billion as of January 19, 2006.