Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, announced The Global Dow, which measures the stock performance of 150 of the world’s leading companies, will become the underlying index for State Street Global Advisors’ SPDR® Global Dow ETF, effective May 2, 2011.

The equally weighted 150 stocks in The Global Dow are selected by an Averages Committee comprised of the Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal, the head of Dow Jones Indexes research and the head of CME Group research – the same selection process used by the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (In 2010, CME Group acquired 90% of Dow Jones Indexes from Dow Jones & Co., a division of News Corp., and publisher of The Wall Street Journal

The Global Dow replaces Dow Jones Indexes’ Dow Jones Global Titans 50 Index as the underlying index for the State Street Global Advisors’ product previously known as SPDR Global Titans ETF. The Dow Jones Global Titans 50 Index is comprised of 50 of the world’s largest publicly traded multinational companies, selected using float-adjusted market capitalization, revenue and net income.