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Selected Major Equity Indexes Sorted By YTD Returns Source: IndexUniverse. All returns are in US dollars. 3- and 5-year returns are annualized. Data as of October 31, 2013. |
A November press release announced the outcome of S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI’s joint annual review of the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). The review is aimed at ensuring the GICS structure most accurately represents global equity markets.
The new GICS structure covers 10 sectors divided into 24 industry groups, 67 industries and 156 subindustries.
In October, Concerto Financial Solutions (CFS) launched the first-of-its-kind CFS Pan-African Bond Index (CABI). It has a market capitalization of more than $200 billion and is intended to help increase liquidity and transparency in the local African currency bond markets.
The indexes are calculated daily using closing prices from major financial institutions and are available in local currency, U.S. dollar, euro and rand.
FTSE Group announced in late October that it teamed up with the Bank of China (Hong Kong) (BOCHK) to launch the FTSE-BOCHK Offshore RMB Bond Index series, a range of renminbi-denominated fixed-income indexes.
Neither the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index nor the S&P GSCI will undergo major changes in weighting or inclusion for 2014, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices press releases.
Natural Gas and WTI Crude Oil will undergo the largest weighting downshift in the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index, shifting from 10.4 and 9.2 percent, respectively, in 2013, to 9.4 and 8.5 percent, respectively, in 2014. Brent Crude Oil will see the largest upshift, from 5.8 percent weighting in 2013, to 6.5 percent in 2014.
Stoxx Limited launched four “quality” indexes in early October: the Stoxx Global Strong Quality 50; the Stoxx Europe Strong Quality 30; the Stoxx Asia/Pacific Strong Quality 30; and the Stoxx USA Strong Quality 50. Each represents strong quality companies in its respective region.
Russell Indexes, in consultation with J.P. Morgan, rolled out the Russell Fundamental U.S. Top 100 Volatility Control 7% Index in late October. The new index places a volatility control overlay onto the fundamentally weighted index methodology.
Nasdaq launched eight new BulletShares indexes in early October, including one line focused on investment grade and the other on junk credits, with each line further divided into an ultra-short and short-term ladder. Each of the indexes also comes in a straight-return and total-return series.
The launch of the new indexes comes in the wake of a co-branding announcement in June between Nasdaq and Accretive Asset Management, the asset manager that created the BulletShares indexes.