NEW YORK, July 10, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced that the Dow Jones BRIC 50 Index has been licensed to BNP Paribas Asset Management to serve as the basis for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) for the first time. The EasyETF DJ BRIC 50 will be available on NYSE Euronext, Paris today.
The Dow Jones BRIC 50 Index measures the performance of leading blue-chip companies from Brazil, Russia, India and China. The index includes 15 Brazilian companies whose stocks trade on the Bovespa stock exchange, 5 Russian companies whose stocks trade on the RTS and Micex stock exchanges, 15 Indian stocks which trade on the Bombay and National stock exchanges of India, as well as 15 blue-chip stocks for China whose primary operations are in mainland China, but whose stocks trade on the Hong Kong Stock exchange or at a major U.S. stock exchange.
"The emergence of domestic demand, increasing importance in terms of global output and continued decoupling from the developed countries, are among the attractive characteristics of Brazil, Russia, India and China. All of these factors contribute to the growing role these four emerging markets play in the world economy," said Ricardo Manrique, chief executive officer, STOXX Ltd., the joint venture which is responsible for Dow Jones Indexes' business development in Europe. "The Dow Jones BRIC 50 Index offers market participants a superior tool to capture the performance of these sought-after markets."
Daniele Tohme-Adet, head of ETFs and indexed funds, BNP Paribas Asset Management, said: "By licensing the Dow Jones BRIC 50 Index we are adding emerging markets exposure to the EasyETF portfolio. The EasyETF BRIC 50 offers market participants a very flexible access to the BRIC emerging markets within a UCITS-III compliant packaging."
The Dow Jones BRIC 50 Index was launched on June 7, 2006. Daily historical data is available back to December 31, 2002. The index is available in price and total return versions, and is reviewed annually in September. It is weighted by float-adjusted market capitalization, and each component's weight is capped at 10% of the index's total free-float market capitalization. The Dow Jones BRIC 50 Index is calculated in U.S. dollar and euro. As of July 9, 2009 the index has been up 36.82% for the year.
Further information on the Dow Jones BRIC 50 Index can be found on www.djindexes.com.
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