Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays Bank and publisher of fixed income benchmarks, has launched a new family of benchmark bond indices that use gross domestic product (GDP) to weight country blocs within an index.
This new benchmark family continues to expand the number of alternative weight bond indices available in the Barclays Capital benchmark index platform and widens the choice for investors beyond existing flagship indices which weight index eligible securities by their market value.
Barclays Capital also announced a new family of universal benchmark indices that combine developed market and emerging markets debt in single benchmarks using either market value or GDP weights. Using published GDP data, this new family calculates target index weights for different index country blocs as a percentage of GDP rather than weighting each bond by its market value.
The GDP weighting methodology is available for flagship benchmarks such as the Global Aggregate and Global Treasury Indices and other universal benchmarks that include both developed market and emerging markets debt. Bespoke benchmark solutions can also be adapted to use this new rules-based alternative weighting scheme.
Waqas Samad, head of index, portfolio and risk solutions at Barclays Capital, said: “By continuing to launch fixed income indices that are in demand by global investors, like the new GDP weighted index family, Barclays Capital is in a unique position to offer index and portfolio risk solutions truly tailored to an index user’s specific market perspective.”
Larry Kantor, head of research for Barclays Capital, said: “This new index family underscores our commitment to providing clients with unique analytical resources through our market-leading research platform. We will continue to invest in our index offering to deliver to our clients the tools they need to be successful.”
