New Nasdaq index tracks bailed-out companies

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nasdaq OMX has launched an index to track the performance of 24 companies bailed out by U.S. taxpayers -- and it's already down.

The index, comprising companies that have received at least $1 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and other government aid plans, is called the Nasdaq OMX Government Relief Index.

The index began with a value of 1000.00 on January 5. It stood at 948.57 Thursday morning.

The index is dominated by financial institutions such as Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc and Wells Fargo & Co, but also includes American International Group Inc and General Motors Corp.

All the companies are equally weighted in the index. New components will be added as more firms receive more and more government funds, John Jacobs, executive vice president of Nasdaq OMX, told Reuters.

"With a huge expenditure of taxpayer money, we should have some measures out there to measure the effectiveness of it, so we can see five years from now, or every month ... in between, how effective was the bailout," he said.

Late last year, as the financial crisis wiped out banks such as Lehman Brothers Holding Inc and forced the fire sale of Wachovia and Merrill Lynch, the government launched a $700 billion TARP to strengthen banks hammered by mounting losses.

The program was later extended to non-banking financial institutions and the cash-starved automakers.

More than 100 companies have applied to participate in the taxpayer-funded government plan, which exchanges a cash injection for preferred shares and warrants.

The new Nasdaq index is calculated in real time across the combined exchanges.

Jacobs said Nasdaq plans to launch a global version of the index, as well as industry versions, as more companies receive government funds.

The exchange operator will also launch a broader index including all the companies bailed out by the government.

(Reporting by Juan Lagorio, editing by John Wallace)