Dow Jones makes Toronto début and adds three metal sub indexes

Date: Monday, March 17, 2008
Author: Hedge Funds Review

The Dow Jones-AIG Grains Sub-Index has been licensed to Horizons BetaPro Funds to underlie two leveraged commodity exchange-traded funds DJ-AIG Agricultural Grains Bull Plus ETF (exchange-traded funds) and Horizons BetaPro DJ-AIG Agricultural Bear Plus ETF. Both ETFs were launched on the Toronto Stock Exchange on March 14.

This is the first time the Dow Jones-AIG Grains Sub-Index has been used as the basis of Canadian ETFs.

The Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index, introduced in 1998, is a diversified and liquid benchmark for the commodities markets. It is composed of futures contracts on 19 physical commodities.

At March 11, 2008, the one-year performance of the sub-index was 62.50%.

Sub indexes created for metals

In a separate move Dow Jones Indexes has launched as series of single commodity sub-indexes for platinum, lead and tin. The sub-indexes include the Dow Jones-AIG platinum, lead and tin sub-index.

Theses single commodity indexes, together with the existing Dow Jones-AIG Cocoa Sub-Index, have been licensed to ETF Securities in London. All four have been listed on the London Stock Exchange by ETF Securities.

The new indexes add to the existing 20 single commodity sub-indexes for aluminium, coffee, copper, corn, cotton, crude oil, gold, heating oil, lean hogs, live cattle, natural gas, nickel, silver, soybeans, soybean oil, sugar, unleaded gasoline, wheat, zinc and cocoa.

Platinum, lead and tin are not included in the index at present (although they are eligible) because they do not surpass the minimum weight (a combination of futures-trading volume and global production) required for inclusion. Excess and total return versions for all 23 single commodity sub-indexes are available.