Newly Launched Euro Stoxx Optimised Banks Index Licensed To Source

STOXX Limited, the market-moving provider of innovative, substantial and global index concepts, today announced the launch of the EURO STOXX Optimised Banks Index. The new index, which is part of the STOXX Optimised Index family, applies the well-known STOXX Optimised methodology to the Euro zone's banks supersector following the Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB).

The EURO STOXX Optimised Banks Index has been licensed to Source to underlie an exchange-traded fund (ETF) which will be available on Deutsche Boerse/Xetra today.

"With the launch of the EURO STOXX Optimised Banks Index, we are taking another step to expand our well-known STOXX Optimised Index family, which applies superior concepts to improve liquidity and diversification in the indices," said Hartmut Graf, chief executive officer, STOXX Limited. "The EURO STOXX Optimised Banks index offers market participants a way to focus on the performance of Euro zone banks only, while at the same time relying on the innovative methodology of the STOXX Optimised Indices."

Ted Hood, chief executive officer, Source, said: "The STOXX Europe 600 Optimised Supersectors indices have been highly popular with investors. We are convinced that applying this optimisation technology to the Euro bank sector will offer investors a compelling and innovative tool for meeting their ongoing investment objectives."

The EURO STOXX Optimised Banks Index follows the same methodology as the STOXX Optimised Indices. The most defining features of this index family is, that they take into account the ability to borrow a stock in the stock lending market, a key component in facilitating active trading in the underlying index constituents and related products. To incorporate this unique aspect, STOXX uses data provided by Data Explorers, the unique provider of global, independent data, analytics and insight into short selling and securities lending.

The EURO STOXX Optimised Banks Index is available in price, net and gross return versions, and is reviewed quarterly in March, June, September and December. The index is weighted by float-adjusted market capitalization, and calculated in euro and U.S. dollar.

Further information on the EURO STOXX Optimised Banks Index is available at www.stoxx.com.