New product launches

Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, Hesse, and North Rhine-Westphalia are heightening the responsible profile of state pension funds by adopting customized versions of STOXX Paris-aligned benchmark indices for their investments.

Four new indices have been added to the STOXX Equity Factor suite, which offers diversified multifactor exposure to five equity style risk premia sources. Powered by STOXX’s indexing capabilities and Axioma’s risk models and portfolio optimizer, the indices deliver balanced and well-researched factor exposures, seeking long-term outperformance.

In the current environment of rising inflation, interest rates, and geopolitical uncertainty iShares relaunched two ETFs in its factor suite (LRGF and INTF), using a multifactor strategy from index provider Qontigo.

The new SDI Innovation Outlook dataset from the Sustainable Development Investments Asset Owner Platform (SDI AOP) helps investors anticipate companies’ future contributions to the SDGs based on patenting of intellectual property.

The index follows a unique patents-based stock selection methodology targeting innovators and specialists that are helping create and deploy the Metaverse. With it, Qontigo expands its wide suite of thematic indices harnessing the upside of companies at the vanguard of new technologies.

The first collaboration between Postal Savings Bank of China and Qontigo will allow the lender’s clients to access a portfolio of large Chinese equities chosen for their sustainability scores and optimized to limit deviations from the benchmark in terms of risk and industry allocation.

Lukas Smart, Head of US iShares Sustainable and Factors Product Segments, and Arun Singhal, Global Head of Index Product Management at STOXX, discuss the recent update to BlackRock’s multi-factor offering and the outlook for factor investing.

We caught up with Zubin Ramdarshan, Head of Equity & Index Product Design at Eurex, and Yang Wang, Head of Thematic Index R&D at Qontigo, to learn more about the first-ever listing of thematics derivatives at the Frankfurt-based exchange.

The new fund was listed on Sept. 7 and replicates the iSTOXX® Access Metaverse, an index tailored around a custom methodology aimed at tracking the key beneficiaries of a nascent theme in our modern world.

The funds track yen-hedged versions of the two European flagship benchmarks and come amid increasing Japanese demand for foreign assets.

The Australia-listed iShares Future Tech Innovators ETF seeks exposure to companies driving the technological innovation that’s disrupting our modern world, by investing in six thematic ETFs. Target investments include the themes of automation & robotics, breakthrough healthcare and digitalization.

A new white paper from Qontigo analyzes the components of a multi-factor alpha forecast in a universe of US stocks. The alpha has enhanced market returns over the last 20 years, with 2021 showing the best annual results.