HedgeCo.Net – Indexchange, the German investment company that specializes in exchange-traded funds, has signed a licensing agreement with Dow Jones Indexes, STOXX Ltd. and SAM Group to issuefinancial products on the Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index, the Dow Jones China Offshore 50 Index, and the Dow Jones Euro STOXX Sustainability 40 Index. These three indexes will serve– for the first time – as underlying for exchange traded funds.
The Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index measures the performance of the top 30 stocks by dividend yield in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore. To be included in theindex, companies must pass the following criteria: The company must have paid dividends in each of the previous three years; the company’s dividend-per-share in the previous year must be greater thanor equal to its three-year average; and to assure dividend quality, the company’s five-year average dividend payout can’t be more than 85% of its per-share earnings or any greater than 1.5 times thepayout ratio of the corresponding Dow Jones country index. A company’s weight in the index is based on its dividend yield.
The Dow Jones China Offshore 50 Index represents the largest, super-sector leaders of companies whose primary operations are in mainland China but trade at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, New YorkStock Exchange, Nasdaq or American Stock Exchange. Stocks included in the index are H shares, red chips, ADR/ADS and Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. If a stock is traded on two or more overseasexchanges, only the listing with the highest trading volume is included in the selection universe.
The Dow Jones Euro STOXX Sustainability 40 Index comprises the 40 biggest sustainability leaders in the Euro zone. The index is weighted according to sustainability scores and is, thus, based on theresults of SAM’s annual sustainability assessment. The scores are derived from a comprehensive analysis of general as well as industry-specific criteria covering all three dimensions ofsustainability – economic, environmental and social. Components are selected from the existing broad Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability Index which includes the top European companies in terms ofeconomic, environmental and social criteria.
