SIX Launches New Global Equity Indices

The global financial information provider SIX has launched today a family of global equity indices designed specifically for the retail, private banking, and asset management sector. This marks the company’s latest move in its push to further strengthen its position as a global index and data provider.

The new indices come in response to the growing appetite from financial institutions to gain a clearer view of the stocks and markets in which their clients’ money is invested, as well as their performance. Beyond empowering financial institutions to provide customers with a simple, digital portal through which to view their equities investments, the new offering will significantly reduce the administrative burden for many existing clients of SIX. Rather than subscribing to several sources, SIX can provide access to equivalent indices with reduced administrative overhead.

In addition, the use of API technology by SIX means financial institutions can offer additional data sets to customers like real-time pricing information surrounding a given equity, along with more granular detail on its performance. Financial institutions will also not need to interact with multiple index and data providers any longer in order to be able to offer these services to their customers.

The SIX Global Equity Indices comprise the SIX World and the SIX Broad & Blue-Chip Indices. The SIX World Indices have a variable number of components that aim to provide the broadest market representation for a diversified set of major geographic regions. The indices are reviewed on a semiannual basis in June and December and their components weighted by free-float market capitalization. The calculation is performed in USD, EUR and CHF, while the dissemination occurs as end-of-day only.

The SIX Broad & Blue-Chip Indices include indices with a fixed number of components that aim to capture the most representative companies of geographic or economic agglomerations from medium to country level. The review frequencies are set individually (with the majority being rebalanced on a quarterly, annual or semi-annual basis). The index components are typically weighted by free-float market capitalization, although some indices are offered as price weighted.

The existing Swiss (SMI/SPI/SBI/SARON), Spanish (IBEX35), Nordic and ESG indices from SIX are already popular with a vast array of global banks, asset managers and asset owners. To enhance and simplify the client experience, the solution combines all essential indices and instrument data into one single delivery channel, the Web API. This includes equity prices, index values, index constituents, reference data, corporate actions information and regulatory data.

All indices are available in USD, EUR, CHF and local currencies and as price, net and gross return versions. The SIX Global Indices also serve as basis for fully-customized indices, depending on individual client requirements and for use-cases in display, derived data, reporting, portfolio, risk and asset management.

Dr. Christian Bahr, Head Index Services, Financial Information, SIX, highlighted: “Establishing a strong presence across the banking sector is paramount for recognition as a key player in global indices and global market data. With the relentless growth of passive investing, this has become increasingly important in recent years. Many financial institutions are in the process of renewing their online banking products, including their own websites and apps. SIX supports them with a more sophisticated overview of market performance for their investment-savvy customers, and our combined proposition around API delivery will make accessing this data faster, simpler, and more cost-effective for financial institutions. We eagerly anticipate creating further innovations in this exciting space.”

Further information: The SIX Global Equity Indices.