Goldman Sachs Constructs E-Commerce Index.

Goldman Sachs, the New York City-based banking and finances giant, has devised a yardstick for investors to use to measure electronic commerce ventures. The investment bank said Thursday it would introduce the Goldman Sachs Electronic Commerce index in September, providing a tool to track publicly traded companies in the e-commerce sector. The index was created to "reflect the growth and development of electronic commerce and its impact on the larger economy," Rakesh Sood, Goldman E-Commerce analyst, said in a statement. Goldman said it would include 39 stocks in the index. The companies listed must generate the majority of their revenues online, operate as virtual companies outside of the traditional bricks and mortar framework or be key e-commerce infrastructure providers, the firm said in its announcement. Indices like this one can be used as a benchmark of a certain area of the markets. Some of the more well-known indices are the Dow Jones Industrial average, Standard & Poor_s, or NASDAQ. These indices group stocks together to provide an insight into a particular sector. The Dow groups 30 stocks, covering financial, food, technology, retail, heavy equipment, oil, chemical, pharmaceutical, consumer goods and entertainment industries. "If Goldman is establishing this, it tells you two things: there is still a growth opportunity and it_s mainstream,"said Adam Gutstein, chief operating officer for Diamond Technology Partners of Chicago, a strategic e-commerce consultancy. Goldman is one of the world_s leading investment houses with revenues of $22 billion in 1998 and a $3.6 billion IPO in May.