DOW JONES INDEXES AND THE FEDERATION OF EURO-ASIAN STOCK EXCHANGES TO DESIGN REGIONAL INDEXES
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DOW JONES INDEXES AND THE FEDERATION OF EURO-ASIAN STOCK EXCHANGES TO DESIGN REGIONAL INDEXES
NEW YORK (June 3, 2009)—Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, and the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges (FEAS) plan to launch the Dow Jones FEAS Indexes on Friday, June 5. This is the first time indexes are created to measure the performance of companies across the Euro-Asian region. The three indexes that are being launched on Friday are a composite, and two regional sub-indexes. The Dow Jones FEAS Indexes are designed to underlie index-linked investment products such as funds and structured products.
Dow Jones FEAS Composite Index currently includes component stocks of 10 of the 32 member states of the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges. The exchanges included are Abu Dhabi (UAE), Amman (Jordan), Bahrain (Kingdom of Bahrain), Belgrade (Serbia), Bulgaria (Bulgaria), Istanbul (Turkey), Karachi (Pakistan), Macedonia (Republic of Macedonia), Muscat (Oman), and Zagreb (Croatia).
The Dow Jones FEAS Middle East/Caucasus Index currently includes stocks from the following four FEAS member exchanges: Abu Dhabi, Amman, Bahrain, and Muscat.
The Dow Jones FEAS South East Europe Index measures the performance of companies in the following five FEAS member exchanges: Bulgaria, Zagreb, Macedonia, Belgrade and Istanbul.
“FEAS has promoted the development of emerging stock exchanges across the Euro-Asian region and has supported a transparent market environment between FEAS members to advance trading in these markets," said Michael A. Petronella, president, Dow Jones Indexes. “The introduction of the Dow Jones FEAS Indexes will support this mission as the index provides market participants with easy access to a unique combination of emerging and frontier market stocks.”
“I can clearly remember the day that we founded FEAS, with merely 12 regional exchanges, fourteen years ago. Today, FEAS covers a vast area from Mongolia in the East to Croatia in the West, with 32 stock exchange members and seven affiliate members. At FEAS, we attach great value to visibility and transparency, and the Dow Jones FEAS Indexes, designed to measure the performance of companies across the Euro-Asian region, is the first of its kind. The three indexes currently cover around one third of the companies traded on the FEAS member exchanges, and we hope to increase both the types of indexes and also the number of constituent companies in the near future. I believe the Dow Jones FEAS Indexes will significantly contribute to promoting the growing businesses in the Euro-Asian region," said Huseyin Erkan, chairman & chief executive officer, Istanbul Stock Exchange & president, FEAS.
The Dow Jones FEAS Indexes are designed to cover 95% of the free-float market capitalization of each country in the respective index. In addition to float-adjusted market capitalization, components are selected based on readily available prices. The indexes are calculated and disseminated in euro and U.S. dollar and weighted by float-adjusted market capitalization.
The Dow Jones FEAS Indexes are rebalanced quarterly when additional FEAS member exchanges will be added.
For more information on the Dow Jones FEAS Indexes, please visit http://www.djindexes.com.
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Journalists may e-mail questions regarding this press release to PR-Indexes@dowjones.com or contact Dow Jones Indexes/STOXX press office:
New York: +1-212-597-5720
Frankfurt: +49-69-29-725-290
Hong Kong: +852-800-969-336
Singapore: +65-6-4154-299
To contact FEAS please email secretariat@feas.org or call Susan Gogus, Assistant Secretary General, at +90-212-298-2210
Note to Editors:
About Dow Jones Indexes
A full-service index provider, Dow Jones Indexes develops, maintains and licenses indexes for use as benchmarks and as the basis of investment products. Best known for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Indexes also is co-owner of the Dow Jones STOXX indexes, the world’s leading pan-European indexes that are an integrated segment of the Dow Jones Global Index series. Additionally, Dow Jones Indexes maintains its benchmark index series, the Dow Jones Total Stock Market Indexes, which is anchored by the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index and covers more than 12,000 securities in 65 markets. Beyond equity indexes, Dow Jones Indexes maintains a number of alternative indexes, including measures of the hedge fund and commodity markets. Dow Jones indexes are maintained according to clear, unbiased and systematic methodologies that are fully integrated within index families. www.djindexes.com
Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV; www.newscorp.com). Dow Jones is a leading provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates community-based information franchises. Dow Jones owns 50% of SmartMoney and 33% of STOXX Ltd. and provides news content to radio stations in the U.S.
About FEAS
FEAS is an organization composed of 32 stock & commodity exchanges of the region and 7 affiliate clearing and settlement depositories. FEAS was established on 16 May 1995 , the mission of FEAS is to create fair, efficient and transparent market environments, with little or no barriers to trade, between the FEAS members and their operating regions. Harmonization of rules and regulations and adoption of new technology, for trading and settlement, by member securities markets, will facilitate the objectives of FEAS by promoting the development of the member markets and providing cross border trading opportunities for securities issued within FEAS member countries. FEAS’s permanent secretariat is located in Istanbul, Turkey.