IPC

The IPC (Indice de Precios y Cotizaciones) is an index of stocks that trade on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV), which is Mexico's only stock exchange. The IPC is the main indicator of the BMV. It measures the performance of the Mexican stock market, and it is representative of all shares listed on the stock exchange. This indicator was implemented in its current structure in 1978.

The BMV is headquartered on Paseo de la Reforma in central Mexico City. BMV is a private limited [Page 942]company, with the exchange's shareholders consisting exclusively of authorized brokerage firms, each of which owns a single share. The exchange trades debt instruments including federal Treasury certificates (CETES), federal government development bonds (BONDES), investment unit bonds, bankers' acceptances, promissory notes with yield payable at maturity, commercial paper, and development bank bonds. In addition, it also trades stocks, debentures, mutual fund shares, and warrants. Trading is conducted electronically through the BMV-SENTRA Equities System.

The mission of the BMV is to

Investors go to stock exchanges worldwide as an option to protect and increase their monetary savings, supplying monetary resources that in turn allow corporations and governments to finance productive and development projects that in turn generate jobs and wealth. The stock exchanges are organized markets that contribute to this financial channeling in a free, efficient, competitive, equal, and transparent way, holding up previously agreed rules for all participant parties.

The BMV is the physical place where the trades made by the brokerage firms are executed and registered. Investors buy and sell stocks and debt securities through intermediaries, called brokerage firms. Note that the BMV does not buy or sell securities directly. The investors send their orders through an account executive employed by a brokerage firm. These account executives are registered specialists who have received training and are authorized by the CNBV. The buy and sell orders are transmitted from the brokerage firms to the market through a sophisticated Negotiation, Transaction, Registry and Assignation Electronic System (BMV-SENTRA Capitales) where they wait to find an equal but opposite order and thus perfect the operation. Once shares or debt securities have been acquired, performance can be monitored in specialized newspapers and the electronic information system of the BMV.

The BMV is where Mexico's organized securities market transactions are held, and its main objective is to facilitate the securities transaction process as well as market development, fostering its expansion and competitiveness through the following functions:

• 1.
  Establish the facilities and mechanisms as an aid in the relationship of the securities supply and demand, credit certificates, and other documents registered at the National Securities Registry (RNV), as well as provide the necessary services for underwriting, offering and the exchange of the aforementioned securities.
• 2.
  Publish, provide, maintain, and make available to the general public the pertinent information about the securities listed at the BMV and at the International Quotations System (SIC), about its issuers as well as of the executed transactions.
• 3.
  Establish the necessary means to ensure that the transactions held at the BMV by the brokerage firms comply with the applicable legislation.
• 4.
  Issue regulations that set standards and operative guidelines as well as conduct norms to promote fair and equitable market practices at the securities market; guard their observation and impose disciplinary and corrective measures, in case of lack of fulfillment, that are mandatory for brokerage firms and the issuers with listed securities at the BMV.

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