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As of the next index rebalancing date on 25 March 2008, Deutsche Börse is also to expand its range of equity indices. This will mean aggregating a total of 18 sectors into nine new large supersectors: Utilities, Telecommunication, Financials, Industrials, Information Technology, Pharma & Healthcare, Basic Materials, Consumer Goods and Consumer Services. Deutsche Börse will calculate the nine new indices under the name DAXsupersector. These will comprise the companies from Prime Standard with an average daily exchange turnover of at least €1 million. As a whole, the DAXsupersector indices are thus intended to enable investable access to sectors in Germany.
Furthermore, Deutsche Börse will calculate new indices in addition to its existing sector indices, which will consider all stocks from Prime Standard, General Standard and Entry Standard together. The sectoral divisions which previously applied only to Prime Standard equities will now also be transferred to General Standard and Entry Standard. The new sector indices with the names DAXsector All and DAXsubsector All will increase the visibility of the companies and thus also the attraction of a listing in Frankfurt. This in turn will increase transparency thereby improving comparability with international standards.
To facilitate uniform identification, Deutsche Börse is replacing the term “Industry Group” with Subsektor respectively. The indices belonging to the 18 sectors will now use the name DAXsector, and the 63 subsector indices will take DAXsubsector.
Furthermore, Deutsche Börse has defined the criteria for admission to the DAX, MDAX, SDAX and TecDAX selection indices for foreign stocks. In future, Deutsche Börse will be able to leave out companies from admission to an index if their relationship to the German market is unclear. This could mean that foreign companies which, for example as holdings, officially have a registered office in Germany but with a clear majority of their business activity focused abroad, will not be included. In order to ensure continued transparency for admission to the selection indices, Deutsche Börse will make clear which companies qualify for a selection index in the February rankings. Deutsche Börse publishes the rankings, which provide an up-to-date summary of the listed companies’ market capitalization and stock exchange turnover, on a monthly basis. They serve as a basis for decisions on the admission of stocks into a selection index. The changes will come into effect on the next index rebalancing date, 25 March.
Deutsche Börse will also launch the DAX International index family on 25 March. In so doing, it will provide all domestic and foreign companies listed in Frankfurt with a platform for visibility, regardless of whether they meet the criteria for admission to the DAX, MDAX, SDAX or TexDAX selection indices. The new indices each comprise 100 companies – the DAX International 100 is followed by the DAX International Mid 100 with the next 100 companies. Each of the indices contains the most liquid national and international stocks from the Prime Standard, General Standard and Entry Standard. The selection of constituents from all segments is based on the last three months’ order book turnover on Xetra and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange; each stock can be represented in the index with a maximum weighting of 15 percent.
The next selection indices review will be performed on 5 March 2008.
