Blog posts

On November 26, the STOXX Global 1800 Index fell the most since September 2020 after South Africa reported the existence of a new variant of the COVID-19 virus that may have a higher infection risk than previous types. Value and Travel & Leisure stocks led the retreat during the month.

Rebecca Chesworth, Senior Equities Strategist at State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs; and Hamish Seegopaul, Head of R&D for ESG and Quantitative Indices at Qontigo, discuss the change in underlying index for the SPDR® STOXX Europe 600 ESG Screened UCITS ETF and how clients’ ESG needs are shaping the product offering.

Sustainable investing strategies vary. Some investors, for example, simply want to improve ESG alignment. Others seek to maximize their impact on society, by investing in those companies that contribute the most to certain goals. While the metrics that underlie these approaches have some overlap, there is not perfect correlation, in terms of how metrics are defined, how portfolios are constructed, what is being targeted, etc.

Using the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework for an impact-measurement approach can help understand and quantify companies’ real-world impact, a new whitepaper from Qontigo and Clarity AI argues. Such an approach enables investors to bridge an important gap at a time when impact has emerged as a key investment pillar, right next to risk and returns.

A panel at COP26 comprised of sustainability and index experts, including members of Willis Towers Watson and Qontigo, explains how the STOXX Willis Towers Watson Climate Transition Indices (CTIs) help investors manage climate-transition risk and align their investments for the economic transition to net zero.

One of the panels at the Sustainability & Impact Investor Forum in Monaco last month drew from the perspectives of active fund management, asset-owner and indexing specialists, who discussed the key drivers and approaches to incorporate the transition to net zero into investment portfolios.

In the fifth anniversary of the launch of the first thematic ETFs resulting from the collaboration between BlackRock and Qontigo, we reflect on the performance of seven strategies covered in this partnership: Automation & Robotics, Ageing Population, Digitalization, Electric Vehicles, Digital Security, Healthcare Innovation and Smart City Infrastructure.

The STOXX Global 1800 Index climbs 5.4% in month when measured in dollars and including dividends, led by US and European markets. Factor, thematic and dividend strategies struggle to catch up with strong showing from benchmarks.

B3, operator of the Brazilian stock exchange, will list futures on the two European blue-chip indices in December. The new products will give local investors direct access to the European market without leaving their home exchange.

Lyxor ETF Germany and Austria’s Head of Product Development & Engineering explains how the change in the underlying index for the Lyxor 1 STOXX® Europe 600 UCITS ETF means the fund now complies with sustainability labels and meets the responsible criteria of retail and institutional European investors.

Rick Redding of the Index Industry Association (IIA) and Qontigo’s Arun Singhal discuss what role indices will play in an asset-management industry increasingly veering towards sustainability considerations in the portfolio-construction process.

Sustainability indices and analytics are crucial catalysts for investors to transition from ‘brown’ to ‘green’ portfolios. However, the shift is being hindered, among other things, by inconsistent national legislations and lack of proper ESG disclosures from companies. Regulators have a key role to play to overcome these obstacles.