Early years

The STI has a history dating back to its founding in 1966.^[1] Following a major sectoral re-classification of listed companies by the Singapore Exchange, which saw the removal of the "industrials" category, the STI replaced the previous Straits Times Industrials Index (abbreviation: STII) and began trading on 31 August 1998 at 885.26 points, in continuation of where the STII left off. At the time, it represented 78% of the average daily traded value over a 12-month period and 61.2% of total market capitalisation on the exchange.^[3]

The STI was constructed by SPH, the Singapore Exchange and SPH's consultant, Professor Tse Yiu Kuen from the Singapore Management University (formerly from the National University of Singapore). It came under formal review at least once annually and was also reviewed on an ad hoc basis when necessary.^[3] One such review, for instance, raised the number of stocks from 45 to 50, which took effect when trading resumed on 18 March 2005. This change reduced the index representation of the average daily traded value to 60%, while increasing its total market capitalisation to 75%.^{[citation needed]}

Revamp

The STI was again revamped and relaunched on 10 January 2008. As part of a new partnership between SPH, SGX and FTSE, the number of constituent stocks was reduced from about 50 to 30 and the index was re-calculated using FTSE's methodology.^[4][5] Besides the STI, the partners also developed a family of indices including the FTSE ST Dividend Index, FTSE ST China Top tradable index, FTSE ST Catalist Index and FTSE ST Maritime Index as well as 19 Supersector and 39 Sector indices. For the purposes of computing the indices, stocks are classified using the Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB).

The family tree of the FTSE ST Index Series:^[1]

• FTSE ST All-Share Index
  • Straits Times Index
  • FTSE ST Mid Cap Index
  • FTSE ST Small Cap Index
  • FTSE ST China Index
    • FTSE ST China Top Index
  • FTSE ST Maritime Index
  • FTSE ST All-Share Industry Indices (10)
    • FTSE ST All-Share Supersector Indices (19)
      • FTSE ST All-Share Sector Indices (39)
    • FTSE ST Real Estate Index
      • FTSE ST Real Estate Investment & Services Index
      • FTSE ST Real Estate Investment Trusts Index
• FTSE ST Fledgling Index

The creation of the FTSE ST Index Series was intended to facilitate the creation of financial products such as institutional and retail funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), derivatives contracts and other index-linked products.^[6] There are currently two ETFs listed on the SGX that track the STI: the SPDR Straits Times Index ETF (formerly known as the streetTRACKS Straits Times Index Fund)(managed by State Street Global Advisors) and the Nikko AM's Singapore STI ETF.