How can I view the long term history of the UK stock market?

[Deleted User]

On tradingview when I type in SPX to show the S&P500 I get data all the way back from like 1900... 

The UK stock market is much older than the US stock market but when I type in UKX for the FTSE100, it only shows data back to 1989.

Also if I type in the ticker symbol of the individual companies that have been pubic for centuries, I still only get data back to no further than 1989.

wmb194

[Deleted User] said:

On tradingview when I type in SPX to show the S&P500 I get data all the way back from like 1900... 

The UK stock market is much older than the US stock market but when I type in UKX for the FTSE100, it only shows data back to 1989.

Also if I type in the ticker symbol of the individual companies that have been pubic for centuries, I still only get data back to no further than 1989.

Sounds like a limitation with the datasets TV is using* but that's about as long as the FTSE100 has existed - introduced in 1984. Before that the main index was the FT30, introduced in 1935, but that was (is) a strange one as companies are rarely removed or added, even when they become smaller and less relevant.

I think it's changed its name now but the annual Barclays Equity Gilt Study had long term data on the UK stock markets. I don't know whether Google can help you find a copy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTSE_100_Index

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FT_30

*If you instead look for British companies' US ADR listings on TV you can sometimes go back further e.g., US:BTI (British American Tobacco) has data from 1977 and both US:UL (Unilever) and US:BP (BP) from 1968.

OldScientist

[Deleted User] said:

On tradingview when I type in SPX to show the S&P500 I get data all the way back from like 1900... 

The UK stock market is much older than the US stock market but when I type in UKX for the FTSE100, it only shows data back to 1989.

Also if I type in the ticker symbol of the individual companies that have been pubic for centuries, I still only get data back to no further than 1989.

macrohistory.net have UK annual stock market returns (as well as a lot of other data) going back to 1870 or so (the data are in a spreadsheet and can, therefore, be plotted too).

Hoenir

[Deleted User] said:

On tradingview when I type in SPX to show the S&P500 I get data all the way back from like 1900... 

Didn't exist as such that long ago. Any data is manufactured rather than being real. 

eskbanker

[Deleted User] said:

...the individual companies that have been pubic for centuries...

Was that just a typo or an autocorrect?! 😮

dont_use_vistaprint

Why would you want to ? What’s relevant about past performance ? 

peter021072

There's some long term quarterly data here going back to ~1700, with an option for data download. Enjoy!