NEW YORK, June 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- S&P Dow Jones Indices announced today that submissions are now being accepted for the third annual SPIVA Awards. The international awards program recognizes excellence in research on the topic of index-related applications. The SPIVA Awards supports researchers from around the world that explore innovative techniques that enhance the use of indices in the financial markets.

US $45,000 in total prize money (a first prize of $30,000 and an honorable mention of $15,000) will be awarded to individuals or teams for the development of distinctive, high-quality research in the use of financial market indices for investment analysis and management. The SPIVA Award winners will be announced in 2014.

Eligible research papers are those completed during the 24 months prior to the submission deadline which have not been published in a refereed journal. Working papers posted on SSRN.com or similar sites are award eligible. Laureates will be selected by a jury of academics and industry experts.

Research should be submitted electronically at www.spdji.com/spiva-awards and must be received by S&P Dow Jones Indices on or before the submission deadline of November 15, 2013. Rules governing the contest can also be found at www.spdji.com/spiva-awards.

The SPIVA panel of judges comprises recognized professionals and academics from S&P Dow Jones Indices, New York University Stern School of Business, Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business, Evensky & Katz of Florida, and California's Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business.

Papers should cover topics related to the use of financial market indices in investment programs, products, evaluation, performance or similar activities, which will be broadly defined. This includes such areas as: trading and investing in ETFs, index linked futures, options, swaps, portfolios or funds; hedging, insuring or managing investment risks; and index performance, calculation, or maintenance. Research focusing on applications of indices to investments or topics directly relevant to investment questions is especially welcome.

Papers will be evaluated on the basis of several criteria including: overall presentation, accuracy, quality, completeness of the analysis and relevance to investing with financial market indices. Where papers make use of empirical data, the data must be made available to the judging panel if any member of the panel wishes to review or replicate the analysis for purposes of accuracy. Papers should be the original work of the author(s) submitting the paper.

The SPIVA Award for first prize in 2012 went to Hao Jiang and Marno Verbeek of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and Yu Wang of Quantitative Indicator Fund of IMC Asset Management for their winning paper, "Information Content when Mutual Funds Deviate from Benchmarks" which showed that the consensus wisdom of active mutual fund managers, as reflected in their average over- and underweighting decisions relative to their benchmark indices, contains valuable information about future stock returns. Honorable mention (second prize) was awarded to Jens Dick-Nielsen of the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark for his research paper entitled "Dealer Inventory and the Cost of Immediacy" which highlights the side-effects of new regulations aimed at investor protections and containing risks.

About SPIVA
The SPIVA (Standard & Poor's Index Versus Active) scorecard reveals quarterly performance data for U.S. equity, international and fixed income mutual funds benchmarked against appropriate asset class indices. More than 3500 actively managed funds are covered in the scorecard. Mutual fund data is derived from CRSP® Survivor-Bias-Free U.S. Mutual Fund Database.

The SPIVA methodology is designed to provide an accurate and objective apples-to-apples comparison of funds' performance versus their appropriate style indices, correcting for factors that have skewed results in previous index-versus-active analyses in the industry.  SPIVA scorecards show both asset-weighted and equal-weighted averages, include survivorship bias correction to account for funds that may have merged or been liquidated during the period under study, and show style consistency for each style group across different time horizons.

About S&P Dow Jones Indices
S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, a part of McGraw Hill Financial, 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™, S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC has over 115 years of experience constructing innovative and transparent solutions that fulfill the needs of 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 asset 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, a part of McGraw Hill Financial. 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.

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