Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced the licensing of the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index and its nine sector sub-indexes to Eurex, one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges and the leading clearing house in Europe, to underlie standardized exchange-traded futures and options contracts. Eurex plans to launch derivatives in the first quarter of 2009.
This is the first time the nine Dow Jones AIG Commodity Sub-Sector Indexes serve as the basis for futures and options contracts. The nine indexes are the Dow Jones-AIG Energy, the Dow Jones-AIG Petroleum, the Dow Jones-AIG Livestock, the Dow Jones-AIG Ex-Energy, the Dow Jones-AIG Grains, the Dow Jones-AIG Industrial Metals, the Dow Jones-AIG Precious Metals, the Dow Jones-AIG Softs, and the Dow Jones-AIG Agriculture sub-indexes.
“Commodities enjoy a vast recognition by market participants who are aiming to expand their portfolio beyond traditional equity asset classes,” said Michael A. Petronella, president, Dow Jones Indexes. “The Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index series offers a variety of sophisticated benchmarks to measure the commodities market as a whole, or to concentrate on single commodities or sectors. The superior methodology provides a balanced weighting of the 19 commodities in this family.”
“Our planned derivatives on the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Indexes will significantly increase our product offering in the commodities area,” said Peter Reitz, member of the Eurex Executive board. “This is another milestone in our strategy to offer our customers multi-asset class products on a global scale. We will add transparency and central clearing to the existing OTC index swap market.”
The Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index was introduced in 1999 and is composed of futures contracts on 19 physical commodities. The Dow Jones-AIG Commodity family of indexes includes nine sector sub-indexes, multiple forward month indexes and sub-indexes for each of the 19 individual commodities in the original Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index, as well as for cocoa, lead, platinum and tin. Also available are Euro-, Yen-, Swiss Franc-, and British Pound-denominated versions of the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index, and the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Spot IndexSM, and total return versions of each of the excess return indexes and sub-indexes.
As of October 15, 2008, the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index is down -25.05% for the year, the Dow Jones-AIG Energy Sub-Index is down -22.19%, the Dow Jones-AIG Petroleum Sub-Index has lost -22.52%, the Dow Jones-AIG Livestock Sub-Index is down -24.42%, the Dow Jones-AIG Ex-Energy Sub-Index has lost -26.42%, the Dow Jones-AIG Grains Sub-Index is down -31.65%, the Dow Jones-AIG Industrial Metals Sub-Index is down -29.30%, the Dow Jones-AIG Precious Metals Sub-Index has lost -11.01%, the Dow Jones-AIG Softs Sub-Index is down -29.50%, and the Dow Jones-AIG Agriculture Sub-Index has lost -30.55%.
As of the end of the third quarter of 2008, there is an estimated US$35 billion tracking the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Indexes. Index methodology and futures contracts used to calculate the index are published in the DJ-AIGCI Handbook. The handbook can be requested via www.djindexes.com or www.aigfp.com.
Further information on the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Indexes is available at www.djindexes.com.
