A real downer

The Thomson Financial Post-Venture Capital Index (PVCI) is a market-valued index that measures the performance of public stocks of companies that received financing from a U.S. venture capital firm or buyouts limited partnership prior to going public. The index, which at present comprises 647 companies, seeks to track the universe of venture-backed stocks from the point of going public until publicly traded for 10 years. Companies remain in the index for 10 years from the IPO date or until price data is no longer available. Companies are also taken off the index if they are acquired, merged to form a new corporate entity or are removed from a publicly traded exchange.

The index is calculated daily and does not take into account dividends. It began in January 1986 with an initialized index value of 100. As of July 30, 2006, its index value stood at 594.22, down from 647.6 on June 30. Separately, the PVCI’s market capitalization was $594.2 billion on July 30, down from $627.4 billion on June 30.