Index

Stocks rose for a fourth consecutive month in May, with the STOXX® Global 1800 Index extending its all-time high, as countries lifted restrictions put in place to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Qontigo today announced the new composition of STOXX Benchmarks and their sub and sector indices, among them the STOXX Europe 600 Index, STOXX North America 600 Index, STOXX Asia/Pacific 600 Index, and STOXX Global 1800 Index.

The new DAX® ESG Target Index offers a sustainable alternative to Germany’s flagship DAX that is optimized to maximize the ESG score of the portfolio, with a tracking-error constraint, and that simultaneously reduces the carbon intensity by at least 30%.

While sustainable investing is not a new concept, its growing popularity means a sharper focus is needed on how to achieve sustainability goals without sacrificing returns or taking on too much unintended risk.

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.

The offering breaks fresh ground in indexing and brings a smart and robust strategy to enhance structured products at a time when the implied dividends market has challenged the industry. The indices, which have been exclusively licensed to Citi, enable the structured-product issuer to remove any single-name dividend risk from their books and deliver more attractive product terms to clients and end investors.

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.

Qontigo has licensed the DAX® ESG Target Index to BlackRock for the launch of a new German-domiciled iShares ETF.

Qontigo has licensed the DAX® 50 ESG Index to Credit Suisse Asset Management to serve as an underlying for an ETF.

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.

Global index rises 4.5% in month amid ongoing expectations for a post-pandemic economic recovery. Gains are led by US and European markets, and by Momentum stocks, which came back in favor after a lackluster first quarter.