IN THIS LIST

A Matter of Degrees: Aligning ESG Strategies with the Paris Agreement

A Guide to S&P Decrement Indices

Indexing Liquid Alternatives

Talking Points: Capturing the Growth of the Australian Technology Industry

The S&P/B3 Brazil ESG Index: A New Benchmark for Sustainability and Investment

A Matter of Degrees: Aligning ESG Strategies with the Paris Agreement

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Jaspreet Duhra

Managing Director, Global Head of Sustainability Indices

S&P Dow Jones Indices

Having already witnessed some of the consequences of climate change around the world, more and more investors are now factoring ESG into their investment decisions. Enter the S&P PACT™ Indices (S&P Paris-Aligned & Climate Transition Indices), created to give market participants access to strategies designed to be compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

We talked with Francois Millet, Managing Director and Head of Strategy, ESG and Innovation at Lyxor ETF, and Jaspreet Duhra, Senior Director and Head of EMEA ESG Indices at S&P DJI, about the evolving role of ESG in mainstream investing and how these indices may help market participants envision a less fraught future.

Indexology Magazine: Why do you think ESG investing is becoming more important to investors around the world, and do you think the recommitment to climate initiatives in the U.S. adds to the momentum?

Francois: The pandemic triggered a realization that humans are extremely dependent on natural systems. Many investors now work on the widespread conviction that climate and exponential inequalities are major risks—and that mitigating these risks, and building a more inclusive and resilient world with long-term focus, is a precondition for financial stability.

ESG investments captured more than 50% of net inflows to ETFs in Europe last year. This more than offset the negative influence of the official U.S. position on the Paris Agreement at the time. But it's great to see the U.S., which produces around 15% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, rejoining the Agreement. This recommitment to climate initiatives should bolster the ESG transformation that's already underway and make the Paris Agreement stronger than ever.

Indexology Magazine: Why were the S&P PACT Indices created, and what specific climate goals do they seek to achieve?

Jas: The world is on a dangerous trajectory of warming that is already impacting society and the economy. Regulators are taking action and as investors increasingly take stock of the climate risks in their holdings, more and more are looking to align their investments with a scenario in which warming increases by no more than 1.5°C. The S&P PACT Indices were created with this goal in mind.

The indices are designed to meet the minimum standards for EU Paris-aligned Benchmarks and EU Climate Transition Benchmarks, which means that in addition to lowering carbon emissions relative to their underlying benchmarks, the indices also seek to decarbonize on an absolute basis at a rate of 7% year-on-year. This is the rate of decarbonization required to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and limit warming to 1.5°C according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Interestingly, these indices are also designed to maintain the same exposure to high-climate-impact sectors as their benchmarks, which means the decarbonization can't be achieved by just tipping all the weight into low-climate-impact sectors.

We have also gone beyond the EU Low Carbon Benchmark requirements by aligning with the recommendations of the TCFD (Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures). We believe that the TCFD approach of breaking climate issues into transition risks, physical risks, and opportunities provides a holistic assessment. It's particularly important that our index takes climate change's physical risks into account, as we already see these risks playing out today.

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A Guide to S&P Decrement Indices

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Izzy Wang

Senior Analyst, Factors and Dividends

S&P Dow Jones Indices

INTRODUCTION

Decrement indices have gained popularity as the underlying assets of equity-linked structured products in Europe and Asia. According to Structured Retail Products, among the 318 products across asset classes in France that matured or autocalled between April 2018 and March 2019, more than 32 were linked to decrement indices.

One of the reasons behind this recent popularity is the low interest rate environment that has emerged since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, which has posed challenges for structured product issuers to design attractive products. This environment triggered a search for new underlying assets or strategies that might deliver cheaper optionality. Decrement indices aim to provide a solution to this challenge. S&P DJI has developed a flexible, transparent, and rules-based decrement index framework, which features:

  • Globally accepted, independent underlying indices such as the S&P 500®;
  • Transparent methodology based on the S&P DJI decrement framework; and
  • Customization options in underlying index and decrement parameters.

A Guide to S&P Decrement Indices: Exhibit 1

How Decrement Indices Work

A decrement is an overlay applied to an underlying index. It is constructed by periodically deducting a predefined fee, either in the form of a fixed percentage or index points, from the underlying index (see Exhibit 1).

Given an underlying index, decrement indices can be calculated in different ways, depending on which parameters are chosen (see Exhibit 2). All the parameters can be customized. Decrement type and application are the most important parameters, as they primarily determine the amount of decrement deduction and how it is applied to an underlying index.

A Guide to S&P Decrement Indices: Exhibit 2


Decrement Type

The performance reduction applied to an underlying index can be either fixed percentage or fixed point. The logic of the fixed-percentage decrement is that dividend yield tends to be stable over the long term. During the past 10 years, the trailing 12-month dividend yield for the S&P 500 was relatively stable, at about 2%. On the other hand, a fixed-point deduction assumes a relatively high level of stability in dividend amounts in the short term, as companies are inclined to maintain more stable dividend policies compared with their earnings.

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Indexing Liquid Alternatives

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Phillip Brzenk

Managing Director, Global Head of Multi-Asset Indices

S&P Dow Jones Indices

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Fiona Boal

Managing Director, Global Head of Equities

S&P Dow Jones Indices

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Rupert Watts

Head of Factors and Dividends, Product Management

S&P Dow Jones Indices

INTRODUCTION

Alternative investment strategies, including absolute return long-short, risk parity, global macro, or relative value, have historically been used only by the most sophisticated market participants, such as institutional investors and hedge funds.  Market participants often seek alternative investments to improve diversification in portfolios, since these strategies tend to exhibit low correlations to the more traditional financial market asset classes of equities and fixed income.  Better diversification may lead to higher risk-adjusted returns and lower drawdowns in a portfolio relative to one that only holds stocks and bonds.

However, a drawback of some alternative investments is that they can be relatively illiquid and only appropriate for long-term investment horizons without short-term liquidity needs.  Conversely, investing in alternative strategies through liquid instruments, such as exchange-traded futures contracts, can reduce the illiquidity risk, making them a good fit for a broader range of market participants.  These strategies, commonly referred to as liquid alternatives, give market participants better access to alternative investments.  Additionally, liquid alternatives in an index format provide a systematic rules-based methodology, transparency in pricing, and typically lower cost structure.

There is a wide range of liquid alternative strategies with differing characteristics or key properties as the underlying rationale for construction.  A liquid alternative strategy could vary from directional to market neutral to trend following.  Directional strategies are typically long-only with low-to-moderate correlation to broad equities, seeking higher risk-adjusted returns relative to the market over the long term.  Market-neutral strategies seek to provide purer exposure to certain risk premia in the marketplace by stripping out the market beta.  These are typically long-short and target a zero beta, and thus tend to exhibit a low correlation to broad equities.  A trend-following strategy seeks to capture price trends by going long or short different assets based on recent price movements, and its correlation to broad equities varies from positive to negative over time.  To have a large opportunity set and proper diversification, a trend-following strategy often incorporates multiple asset classes, such as equities, fixed income, currency, and commodities.

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Talking Points: Capturing the Growth of the Australian Technology Industry

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Michael Orzano

Head of Global Exchanges Product Management

S&P Dow Jones Indices

The S&P/ASX All Technology Index highlights a unique and innovative segment of the Australian market.

  1. Why was this index introduced?

In recent years, ASX-listed technology companies have experienced substantial growth in terms of both number of companies and market capitalization. In the past six years, the number of S&P/ASX All Technology Index constituents nearly tripled from 24 to 69, while the total market capitalization of these companies increased tenfold from AUD 17 billion to about AUD 170 billion.

In a market heavily concentrated in banks and natural resource companies, there is significant demand for an index that captures the Australian technology sector in a comprehensive yet precise way. Importantly, the technology segment measures a unique, innovative part of the market that remains a small portion of the broader Australian share universe. We also expect the index to increase the visibility of technology-related businesses listed on the ASX, which should support further growth of the sector over time.

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The S&P/B3 Brazil ESG Index: A New Benchmark for Sustainability and Investment

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María Sánchez

Director, Sustainability Index Product Management, U.S. Equity Indices

S&P Dow Jones Indices

INTRODUCTION

Indices that integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data are moving from the margins to the mainstream, as investors increasingly seek to align their values with their investments.  A new type of ESG index is emerging to facilitate this change in Brazil: the S&P/B3 Brazil ESG Index.  Jointly developed by S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) and the Brazilian stock exchange (Brasil Bolsa Balcão [B3]), this index not only highlights strong ESG companies—as ESG indices have traditionally done—but it also enables allocation to such companies without requiring investors to take on major risks relative to the market.

THE EVOLUTION OF ESG INDICES

In 1999, S&P DJI launched the first global ESG index, the Dow Jones SustainabilityTM World Index (DJSI World).  By including the top 10% of companies, industry by industry, according to their ESG performance, as determined by the Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) conducted by S&P Global, this groundbreaking index encouraged companies to incorporate many ESG factors in their decisions, extending beyond short-term financial considerations.

In the years that followed, other indices, including regional versions of the DJSI World, such as the DJSI Emerging Markets, were launched with this same philosophy in mind: to highlight best-in-class companies and thereby inspire companies to improve their ESG approaches in order to qualify for inclusion in these indices.

Though these indices have been successful and have indeed inspired companies to change in positive ways, aspects of their methodologies present challenges for many investors.  Some strategies can be too narrow for investors who want to remain broadly diversified.  Though many high-conviction investors use the narrow, best-in-class indices for investment, we saw a need from market participants for ESG indices with the potential to provide returns more in line with the broader market, while providing a more sustainable portfolio of companies.  An example of an index that launched in 2019 that typifies this investor-oriented methodology is the S&P 500® ESG Index.

With the launch of the S&P/B3 Brazil ESG Index, Brazil now has an investor-oriented ESG index of its own.  This index maintains a large portion of the companies in its underlying index, the S&P Brazil BMI, thereby staying broad and diverse while still screening out companies involved in certain business activities and controversies, as well as those with sustainability profiles that run counter to ESG investors’ preferences.

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