China's Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SSE)officially launched the ChiNext Index Tuesday, displaying the day's trend for all the stocks listed on the ChiNext Board.

The index, which has a base value of 1,000 points, together with the Shenzhen Component Index and the Shenzhen SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) Board Index make up the three core indices reflecting the performance of China's stocks listed on the SSE.

The ChiNext Board, which started trading on Oct. 30, 2009, is a Nasdaq-style growth enterprises board, and mainly lists high-tech companies and those with high growth potential.

A maximum of 100 stocks listed on the ChiNext Board are to be used to base the index on, according to a statement posted on the SSE's website. As of last Friday, the board had 86 companies listed on it with a total market capitalization of about 383.46 billion yuan (56.14 billion U.S. dollars).

The ChiNext Index dropped 2.62 percent to 973.84 points in Tuesday morning trading.