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The IIA 2020 Index Foundations Video Series
IIA 2021 Index Survey Snapshot
The IIA is the only industry body to quantify the global benchmark universe. View the full results of our survey here.
Growth in Thematic Indices
Fixed Income ESG Growth
Fixed Income Growth
ESG Growth
Importance of Methodology
Market Structure & Corporate Governance
Industry Research
Index Industry Association Surveys the Index Universe
Index Industry Association (IIA), a global organization of index administrators, today announced the results of a revealing new survey of its fourteen member firms that quantifies the total number of indexes available globally for the first time ever. According to the survey, there are 3.288 million indexes globally with equity indexes representing over 95 percent of benchmarks calculated. The survey, which was conducted as of June 30, 2017, sought information only about the total number of indexes administered by each IIA member. It is estimated that these indexes represent approximately 98 percent of all indexes globally available.
The Financial Index Industry
By The Committee for Economic Development (CED)
Financial indices are designed to provide investors with a way to reduce the complexity and increase the comprehensibility of financial markets – and yet, indices themselves are largely misunderstood. Indices are also commonly confused or conflated with index funds. Somewhat ironically, indices enable an abbreviated lexicon that is used without an underpinning of deep understanding. Talk about “the market” or “the markets” almost always refers not to the actual financial market (or markets) in question, but rather to one or more major financial indices – for example, the Dow Jones®, the S&P 500®, the Nasdaq 100® – that measures activity in that market.
Financial Market Indices: Facilitating Innovation,
Monitoring Markets
By Andrew Clare & Steve Thomas, Cass Business School, City University London
While the advent of the modern stock market index is usually traced to the creation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896, it was the pioneering asset pricing work some 60 years later of Harry Markowitz1 who introduced Modern Portfolio Theory in the 1950’s and William Sharpe2 who developed the Capital Asset Pricing Model in the 1960’s which formed the intellectual basis for ‘investing in market indices’.
Smart Beta Has Crossed The Rubicon
By Rolf Agather, Managing Director of Research, North America, FTSE Russell
The findings of our latest annual global survey of smart beta usage by asset owners (with a collective AUM of over $5 trillion), suggests that smart beta is now a standard tool in investors’ armories. For the first time, we found that the majority of asset owners government organizations, corporations, unions, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds and family offices from North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and elsewhere—now allocate to smart beta. Here are five key findings from the report.