NEW YORK, Oct. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- S&P Dow Jones Indices, the world's largest provider of financial market indices, announced today that it has launched the S&P Emerging Markets Core index. The Index provides core emerging market exposure through an investable stock portfolio that is diversified by country, sector and industry.  

S&P Dow Jones Indices also announced today that it has licensed the S&P Emerging Markets Core index to EGShares, the exchange traded fund ("ETF") offering of Emerging Global Advisors LLC (EGA), to list an ETF on the NYSE Arca.

"The launch of the S&P Emerging Markets Core index signals a new approach to emerging market core holding index design," says Michael Orzano, associate director at S&P Dow Jones Indices. "Its rigorous methodology reduces the sector, industry, and country concentrations common to market capitalization weighted emerging market indices. By licensing the Index to EGShares, S&P Dow Jones Indices is providing the architecture to EGShares to offer investors a well-diversified choice for their emerging market core holding." 

The S&P Emerging Markets Core index seeks to reduce concentration in legacy frontier market sectors, broaden country diversification and tap into available liquidity to gain exposure to emerging industries. The Index focuses on industry groups rather than sectors as index building blocks, equal weights emerging market constituents, caps country exposures, and contains no developed market companies.

"Emerging Global Advisors' mission is to give investors better tools to get the exposures they want in emerging markets," says Robert Holderith, Founder and President of Emerging Global Advisors. "We selected the S&P Emerging Markets Core index in order to address what we believe to be a significant market need for greater diversification in emerging market core portfolios."

The selection universe for the S&P Emerging Markets Core index is defined as the S&P Emerging BMI, excluding companies domiciled in Taiwan. To be eligible for  the Index, stocks must pass size and liquidity requirements by having a float adjusted market capitalization of more than $1 billion and a three-month average daily value traded of more than $2 million. To enhance sector diversification, the largest eligible companies from within 24 Industry Groups, as classified by GICS®, are selected as index constituents. At each quarterly rebalancing, stocks are equal-weighted and a 15% country cap is applied.

To learn more about the S&P Emerging Markets Core index, please visit: www.spindices.com.

About S&P Dow Jones Indices
S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, a subsidiary of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is the world's largest, global resource for index-based concepts, data and research. Home to iconic financial market indicators, such as the S&P 500® and the Dow Jones Industrial Average^SM, S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC has over 115 years of experience constructing innovative and transparent solutions that fulfill the needs of institutional and retail investors. More assets are invested in products based upon our indices than any other provider in the world. With over 830,000 indices covering a wide range of assets classes across the globe, S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC defines the way investors measure and trade the markets. To learn more about our company, please visit www.spdji.com.

Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC ("S&P"), a subsidiary of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC ("Dow Jones").  These trademarks have been licensed to S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC. It is not possible to invest directly in an index. S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, Dow Jones, S&P and their respective affiliates (collectively "S&P Dow Jones Indices") do not sponsor, endorse, sell, or promote any investment fund or other investment vehicle that is offered by third parties and that seeks to provide an investment return based on the performance of any index. This document does not constitute an offer of services in jurisdictions where S&P Dow Jones Indices does not have the necessary licenses. S&P Dow Jones Indices receives compensation in connection with licensing its indices to third parties.

SOURCE S&P Dow Jones Indices