UK stocks: how the FTSE 100 is finding its feet again

The FTSE 100, Britain’s blue-chip stockmarket index, has undergone constant churn in the 37 years since its inception, says Max King. But it is now starting to catch up with its global counterparts.

Oilrig on a stormy sea
The energy sector has hampered the index in recent decades
(Image credit: © Getty Images)

The news late last year that the value of a single US company, Apple, had overtaken that of the entire FTSE 100 index marked another milestone in the long decline of the UK equity market. How has this happened, and is the trend reversing? If so, then the many British investors with a home bias could recover some of their missed performance relative to global markets.

It is 37 years since the FTSE 100 was first constructed as a market capitalisation-weighted index of the largest 100 companies with a full listing on the London Stock Exchange. Until then, investors had to make do with the FT30 index, unweighted, idiosyncratically composed and calculated only every hour, and the All-Share index, calculated daily.

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Max King
Investment Writer

Max has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge and is a chartered accountant. He worked at Investec Asset Management for 12 years, managing multi-asset funds investing in internally and externally managed funds, including investment trusts. This included a fund of investment trusts which grew to £120m+. Max has managed ten investment trusts (winning many awards) and sat on the boards of three trusts – two directorships are still active.

After 39 years in financial services, including 30 as a professional fund manager, Max took semi-retirement in 2017. Max has been a MoneyWeek columnist since 2016 writing about investment funds and more generally on markets online, plus occasional opinion pieces. He also writes for the Investment Trust Handbook each year and has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and other publications. See here for details of current investments held by Max.