Thought leadership

The iSTOXX APG World Responsible Investment Indices were designed to ‘layer in’ various sustainability filters in order to measure the effect on risk and returns of each individual ESG criteria on a developed-markets global equities portfolio. Hamish Seegopaul and Yurong Gu explain how the new indices came about and discuss the value of the collaboration with the Netherlands’ APG and with BlackRock.

As the DAX indices complete the biggest reform in their three-decade history, we talk to Stephan Flaegel, Chief Product Officer, Indices and Benchmarks, at Qontigo, to hear what the new rules mean for the flagship DAX and how quality, simplicity and alignment with international standards were key drivers in the overhaul.

Ronald van Dijk, Deputy CIO at APG Asset Management, discusses how the recently launched iSTOXX APG World Responsible Investment Indices help pension funds and other investors incorporate different layers of sustainability ambitions on portfolios in an innovative, flexible and transparent way.

Chris Huemmer, Northern Trust Asset Management’s Senior Investment Strategist, discusses his firm’s innovative ETFs tracking multi-factor, ESG and climate strategies, and the role of an index provider in wrapping up a holistic investment approach.

BlackRock’s ‘Germany at the Sustainability Turning Point’ webinar provided a stage for a discussion around how companies and investors in Europe’s biggest market are adapting in the face of increasing ESG regulation.

As a new batch of ETPs tracking STOXX single-stock short and leveraged indices is listed on the London Stock Exchange and Euronext, we talk to Oktay Kavrak from issuer Leverage Shares to find out how the products work and how investors are using them.

The race to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 is on, and many investors are adopting indices with a decarbonization path to achieve their climate objectives. Our latest whitepaper looks at Paris-aligned indices covering the US and Europe and seeks to answer the following questions: in which region can investors make the most impact, and how much risk are they taking in the process?

ESG integration, sustainability, and impact investing…While there may be overlap in the meanings of these terms, they each represent a distinct approach to “doing well while doing good” in investor portfolios.

Dispersion trading caught the attention of many in 2020 amid a marked divergence between different types of stocks (‘work-from-home’ vs. ‘reopening’ businesses) and factors (growth vs. value). We caught up with experienced market participants at Optiver and Ellipsis AM to find out more about how best to trade and exploit such market backdrops.

Manuela Sperandeo, BlackRock’s Head of Sustainable Indexing for EMEA, explains why the world’s largest asset manager has placed sustainability as its new standard for investing, and how working with an index provider helps it best serve its clients’ responsible-investing goals.

Science-based emissions-reduction targets (SBTs) help verify that a company has embarked on a pathway to reduce its carbon footprint and get aligned with climate action efforts. The inclusion of SBTs in indices provides an efficient solution to investors wishing to adopt a responsible approach in the face of the global warming crisis.

The growth of ESG impact as a fundamental variable in investing means investors need to reconsider where their portfolios’ new efficient frontier lies, Qontigo’s Global Head of Sustainable Investment says during a panel at the Sustainable Investment Forum Europe 2021.