CAC 40 Price Today: Live Real-Time Quote
Right now, the CAC 40 is trading at 7 782,82 points, a change of -0,36% on the session, on a volume of 74 943 100 shares traded. Over the past twelve months, the index has moved between 7 505,27 € and 8 755,03 € points. The index’s ticker is PX1, its ISIN is FR0003500008, and trading takes place on Euronext Paris — we detail the hours and how it all works below.
What Is the CAC 40 Index? Definition of the Paris Stock Exchange Benchmark
The CAC 40 index is the flagship benchmark of the Paris Stock Exchange: it brings together the 40 largest market capitalizations listed on Euronext Paris, selected on size and liquidity criteria, and captures the health of the French stock market in a single figure. Its name is an acronym — Cotation Assistée en Continu (Continuous Assisted Quotation) — inherited from the electronic quotation system of the 1980s, and its story begins on December 31, 1987, with a base value set at 1,000 points.
Its role goes far beyond stock market reporting. The CAC 40 serves as a benchmark for asset managers: hundreds of index funds and ETFs replicate its performance, billions of euros are managed against it, and its composition shapes institutional investment flows across the entire country. It is also the barometer the media and economists quote to sum up the mood of the French stock market — sometimes unfairly, as an index of 40 stocks is not the whole national economy — but its psychological influence is real. Finally, it is a market instrument in its own right: futures, options and trackers let you trade it directly, without buying a single share.
How Is the CAC 40 Calculated? Weighting Explained Simply
The CAC 40 is a “free-float market capitalization-weighted” index — a formula worth decoding. Each company weighs on the index in proportion to the value of its shares actually available on the market (the free float, i.e. the tradable shares, excluding the stable stakes held by governments or founding families). Concretely: a company whose free-float market cap is ten times that of another weighs ten times more in the index’s movement — and conversely, a modest stock can soar without moving the CAC.
Three rules complete this framework. First, a weighting cap: no stock may exceed a set percentage of the index at rebalancing, so that no single giant — luxury has supplied the example — can dictate the market’s course on its own. Second, the quarterly review: Euronext’s index scientific committee examines the composition four times a year, adding or removing stocks based on their size and liquidity, effective after announcement — these changes always make the financial news. Third, eligibility: companies must be listed on Euronext Paris and pass the free-float and volume tests; corporate law is irrelevant — Airbus, a European company incorporated under Dutch law, is the living proof. These rules explain why the CAC 40 remains representative after thirty-five years of history: it constantly regenerates itself.
CAC 40 Index Composition: The 40 Companies, Their Weights and Sectors
The strength of the CAC 40 lies in its sector balance — and the figures speak for themselves, with a historic dominance of luxury: LVMH, Hermès and Kering together weigh more than 20% of the index. The sector-group breakdown below is calculated automatically from the current weightings:
| Famille de secteurs | Poids cumulé |
|---|---|
| Luxe | 23,2 % |
| Santé & beauté | 17,4 % |
| Industrie & construction | 13,1 % |
| Énergie | 11,8 % |
| Banque & assurance | 11,5 % |
| Aéronautique & défense | 11,2 % |
| Autres (consommation, distribution, télécoms, environnement…) | 8,2 % |
| Technologies | 4,1 % |
Répartition calculée automatiquement sur les pondérations actuelles.
And here is the complete CAC 40 index composition — the full list of CAC 40 companies, ranked by descending weight — updated automatically and reviewed at each quarterly rebalancing by the scientific committee:
| Société | Mnémo | Secteur | Poids |
|---|---|---|---|
| LVMH | MC | Luxe | 11,83 % |
| Hermès International | RMS | Luxe | 10,36 % |
| L'Oréal | OR | Cosmétique | 7,41 % |
| Sanofi | SAN | Pharmacie | 5,22 % |
| TotalEnergies | TTE | Industrie pétrolière, gaz industriel | 5,21 % |
| Airbus | AIR | Aéronautique, défense | 5,16 % |
| Schneider Electric | SU | Matériel électrique | 5,11 % |
| EssilorLuxottica | EL | Optique | 4,80 % |
| Safran | SAF | Aéronautique, défense | 4,09 % |
| Air liquide | AI | Gaz industriel | 4,03 % |
| BNP Paribas | BNP | Banque, services financiers, assurance | 3,54 % |
| Axa | CS | Assurance, services financiers | 3,41 % |
| Vinci | DG | BTP, Immobilier | 2,61 % |
| Crédit agricole | ACA | Banque, services financiers, assurance | 2,00 % |
| Dassault Systèmes | DSY | Services informatiques, technologies | 1,98 % |
| Saint-Gobain | SGO | Matériaux de construction, verre | 1,95 % |
| Thales | HO | Équipementier aéronautique | 1,94 % |
| Danone | BN | Agroalimentaire | 1,82 % |
| Engie | ENGI | Énergie, gaz industriel, industrie pétrolière | 1,66 % |
| Société générale | GLE | Banque, services financiers, assurance | 1,32 % |
| Stellantis | STLAP | Automobile, équipementier automobile | 1,26 % |
| Orange | ORA | Télécommunication, banque | 1,24 % |
| Legrand | LR | Matériel électrique | 1,08 % |
| Kering | KER | Luxe | 1,00 % |
| Capgemini | CAP | Services informatiques | 0,97 % |
| Michelin | ML | Pneumatique, équipementier automobile, tourisme | 0,95 % |
| Pernod Ricard | RI | Spiritueux | 0,94 % |
| Publicis Groupe | PUB | Publicité, médias | 0,91 % |
| Veolia | VIE | Environnement, énergie | 0,90 % |
| ArcelorMittal | MT | Acier, matériau de construction | 0,88 % |
| STMicroelectronics | STMPA | Technologies | 0,78 % |
| Renault | RNO | Automobile | 0,54 % |
| Bouygues | EN | BTP, immobilier, médias, télécommunications | 0,53 % |
| Euronext | ENX | Bourse | 0,53 % |
| Bureau Veritas | BVI | Certification | 0,50 % |
| Eiffage | FGR | BTP, concession autoroute | 0,46 % |
| Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield | URW | Immobilier | 0,43 % |
| Accor | AC | Hôtellerie, tourisme | 0,42 % |
| Eurofins Scientific | ERF | Biotechnologie | 0,37 % |
| Carrefour | CA | Distribution | 0,34 % |
Pondérations actualisées automatiquement (source : composition officielle de l'indice, revue trimestriellement par Euronext).
This diversification has a practical consequence: the CAC 40 is never fully correlated with a single sector — a quarter in which luxury stumbles can be rescued by defense or banks. For individual analysis of the CAC 40 companies, our dedicated selection of CAC 40 stocks is kept up to date, profile by profile.
CAC 40 Top Movers: Reading the Biggest Gains and Losses
Every day, the quote pages display the index’s leaderboard: the stocks rising and falling the most in percentage terms. This reading is more instructive than it appears. A leaderboard dominated by one family of sectors tells the theme of the moment — banks when rates are on the move, defense when geopolitics flares up, luxury when China is spending. Conversely, normal dispersion — a few green names, a few red ones, with no common thread — signals a market trading on individual earnings rather than macro news.
Also keep in mind the arithmetic of weightings: a move in LVMH or TotalEnergies, both heavyweights, mechanically weighs on the entire index, while the same move in a mid-cap stock passes almost unnoticed. That is why experienced investors check the CAC 40 index price and the leaderboard simultaneously — the first gives the direction, the second explains why.
Paris Stock Exchange Trading Hours: When Does the CAC 40 Trade?
The CAC 40 lives to the rhythm of Euronext Paris. The day begins with the pre-opening phase, from 7:15 a.m.: orders build up without being executed, and the order book takes shape around an indicative price that adjusts continuously. At 9:00 a.m., the opening gets the continuous session under way — orders are executed instantly as they arrive. At 5:30 p.m., the close itself goes through a fixing auction: a few minutes during which orders are aggregated into a single closing price, the official figure quoted by every media outlet and used as the reference. Late trading then continues in the post-close session, on thinner volumes and wider spreads.
The most active — and most volatile — moments cluster around three windows: the open (9:00–10:00 a.m.), when the orders accumulated overnight pour in; early afternoon (2:30–3:30 p.m.), when Wall Street opens and US economic data drops; and the closing auction, where the last arbitrages play out. Long-horizon investors do not need to trade these windows, but knowing them helps explain why the same stock can show different prices depending on the time the order is placed.
CAC 40 History: Records and Crises of a National Benchmark
Re-reading the CAC 40 history means re-reading thirty-five years of French economic history. Starting from 1,000 points in late 1987 — a few weeks after the Wall Street crash, an ironic symbol — the index discovered successive spells of euphoria: the frenzy of privatizations and the new economy carried it to 6,922 points in September 2000, the historic peak of the dot-com bubble. Then came the purges: the bursting of the bubble dragged the index back below 2,500 points in 2003, a two-thirds fall that marked a generation of French savers — the 2008–2009 financial crisis would add a new floor around 2,500 points in spring 2009.
The 2010s patiently rebuilt the lost ground, carried by central bank liquidity. The Covid shock in March 2020 caused fresh fear — the index lost nearly 40% in a few weeks before a historic rebound. Then came the era of records: the symbolic 7,000-point threshold was crossed in 2021, and the index has since printed new highs, driven by luxury and defense. One expert clarification to finish: the headline CAC 40 history is a price index, without dividends reinvested — Euronext also publishes a “Total Return” CAC 40 whose long-term performance is far higher, a useful reminder of the weight of dividends in patient investors’ wealth.
Key Dates in CAC 40 History: A Historical Dashboard
| Date | Level | Event |
|---|---|---|
| December 31, 1987 | 1,000 pts | Creation of the index (calculation base) |
| September 4, 2000 | 6,922 pts | Dot-com bubble peak |
| March 12, 2003 | ≈ 2,403 pts | Low after the bubble burst |
| March 9, 2009 | ≈ 2,465 pts | Financial crisis low |
| March 18, 2020 | ≈ 3,750 pts | Covid shock low (−40% in one month) |
| November 2021 | 7,000 pts | First crossing of the 7,000-point mark |
These milestones tell the same story as the long-term chart: an index that doubles its reference level every ten to fifteen years, while going through 40% to 60% drawdowns — for today’s levels, the price and the 52-week high are displayed live at the top of this page. It is the reason long-term investors prefer regular contributions to perfect timing.
CAC 40 Dividend Yield and P/E Ratio: What the Index Returns
Two metrics sum up the CAC 40’s investment appeal. The dividend yield: the 40 companies together distribute the equivalent of 3% to 3.5% of the index’s value every year, a respectable level among the world’s major indices — France is a yield market, with its banks, its energy majors and its generous insurers. The P/E ratio — the ratio between share prices and their earnings — has historically stood between 12 and 16 times depending on the cycle, in line with developed markets: neither the deep discount of certain emerging markets nor the premium of US technology indices.
These two metrics read together: a reasonable P/E plus a solid dividend explain why the CAC 40 often serves as the bedrock of portfolios for French investors, beginners and seasoned alike — exposure to the domestic equity market is paid for with a regular income, without requiring a bet on extreme growth.
How to Invest in the CAC 40: ETFs, Funds and Stocks
You cannot “buy the CAC 40” directly — the index is just a number. Four vehicles let you replicate it. The tracker (CAC 40 ETF) is the royal road: a listed fund that replicates the index for annual fees generally below 0.25%, bought like a stock in a few clicks; some CAC 40 ETFs are eligible for the PEA (the French equity savings plan), a tax advantage unique to French savers — holders should check the wording on the product’s factsheet. The traditional index fund (UCITS) also replicates the index, with slightly higher fees and one price a day. Certificates and leveraged products are for traders: they amplify the index’s moves, in both directions — speculative instruments to handle with care. Finally, buying the constituent stocks directly — starting with our selection of CAC 40 stocks — suits those who want to pick their own stocks rather than take the whole basket.
The market’s main trackers to get started:
| CAC 40 ETF (examples) | ISIN | Annual fees | Type | PEA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amundi ETF CAC 40 | FR0007052782 | ≈ 0.25% | Distributing | Yes |
| BNP Paribas Easy CAC 40 | FR0011869353 | ≈ 0.15% | Accumulating | Yes |
Non-exhaustive list — always check the product’s KID document before buying; fees and tax rules change.
Two common-sense tips complete the picture. First: with an ETF, consistency beats timing — investing a fixed amount each month (the famous DCA) smooths your entry points over a full cycle. Second: in a PEA, a CAC 40 tracker can serve as the cornerstone — the portfolio’s core exposure — later complemented by individual stocks chosen for their profile. Our broker comparison details the offers for opening the account that will host the strategy.
More experienced traders can also gain exposure to the index through futures contracts: see our guide to CAC 40 futures.
CAC 40 Dividends: Total Return — What the Index Doesn’t Show
The figure displayed at the top of this page is the CAC 40 “price” index — it ignores dividends. Yet the companies in the index pay plenty of them: added up, the annual dividend payouts have historically represented between 3% and 4% of the index’s value. An investor who had “bought the CAC 40” twenty years ago and reinvested every dividend would today hold a performance far above the bare chart — that is the silent magic of compound interest, which the official index leaves invisible. Euronext moreover publishes a “Total Return” version of the CAC 40, designed precisely to measure this real performance; accumulating ETFs do the same by automatically reinvesting dividends on the saver’s behalf.
Two practical consequences. To live off a CAC-linked portfolio, favor distributing ETFs, which pay dividends in cash — a predictable quarterly or half-yearly income. To compound over the long term, favor accumulating ETFs, more tax-efficient in a standard securities account because they avoid the taxation of intermediate dividends. This choice, purely technical, changes the real trajectory of the investment over a decade — it deserves three minutes of thought before you buy, not after.
CAC 40 vs Other Indices: S&P 500, Dow Jones, DAX
The CAC 40 naturally compares with its major peers — and the differences matter. Against the US S&P 500 (500 stocks), the CAC offers less technology and more yield: the US discount on dividends is structural, but the growth of the software giants has historically favored the US index. Against the Dow Jones, the comparison is a methodological trap: the Dow contains only 30 stocks and, in a historical quirk, is weighted by share prices rather than market capitalizations — a century-old method that distorts comparisons with all modern indices. Against the German DAX (also 40 stocks), the CAC weighs its industrials differently: automobiles and chemicals dominate across the Rhine, luxury and defense in France. To extend the comparison, our dedicated pages on the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the DAX 40 cover each index in detail.
The practical lesson: national indices tell different stories, and that is precisely the argument for international diversification — a portfolio mixing the CAC 40, the S&P 500 and emerging markets rides out sector cycles with more peace of mind than a single bet on Paris.
Frequently Asked Questions About the CAC 40
Can You Buy the CAC 40 in a PEA?
Not the index itself, but some CAC 40 ETFs are PEA-eligible: they physically hold the French stocks in the index and benefit from the tax wrapper. Check for the “PEA-eligible” wording on the tracker’s factsheet before buying — not all of them are.
How Much Capital Do You Need to Invest in the CAC 40?
A few dozen euros is enough for a CAC 40 ETF, whose units trade for a few euros at online brokers. The consistency of contributions matters more than their initial size.
Does the CAC 40 Trade on Weekends?
No: Euronext Paris is closed on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as on public holidays. Asian indices and the cryptocurrency market, however, keep moving — hence sometimes pronounced opening gaps on Monday mornings.
What Is the Difference Between the CAC 40 and the SBF 120 or the CAC Next 20?
The SBF 120 contains the 40 CAC stocks plus the next 80 — a broader view of the French market; the CAC Next 20 brings together precisely the stocks ranked 41 to 60, the potential “candidates” for the CAC 40. The CAC remains the benchmark index; the others act as a zoom.
How Does a Stock Enter the CAC 40?
By decision of the index scientific committee, at the quarterly reviews, based on free-float market capitalization and traded volumes: the largest candidate stocks replace the smallest outgoing ones, with effect after the official announcement.
Why Does the CAC 40 Rise When Rates Fall?
Two mechanisms: yield stocks (banks, insurers, utilities) become more attractive when savings pay little, and the valuation of future earnings is mechanically higher when the discount rate falls. The relationship reverses when rates rise to fight inflation.