The SWX indices team and the Index Commission have taken this decision because the SPI sector breakdown has not been changed since 1987 and some companies have reshaped their business activities in the meantime. In addition, recent years have seen the emergence of new business lines which need their own SPI sector to reflect their growing importance. The sector breakdown which, with a few exceptions, has been taken over from Dow Jones STOXX is far more precise and fine-grained than the present SPI index structure and allows SPI stocks to be classified in line with the market situation.
Following the introduction of the new classification, 194 new subindices will be published from 2 August onwards, of which 54 will be available in realtime. The new indices have been computed since the beginning of the year, with a baseline of 100 for the price indices and 1000 for the total return indices.
In order to accommodate the specific features of Switzerland, three new categories have been added to the Dow Jones STOXX structure: 'Transportation Diversified' and 'Technology Diversified' (two subgroups) and 'Luxury Goods' (one industry group).
