NEW YORK, Feb. 24, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dow Jones Indexes today announced that iShares has licensed the Dow Jones Emerging Markets Select Dividend Index and the Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index to serve as the basis for two new iShares ETFs.
The ETFs -- the iShares Emerging Markets Dividend Index Fund and the iShares Asia/Pacific Dividend 30 Index Fund -- begin trading today on NYSE Arca.
The Dow Jones Emerging Markets Select Dividend Index is designed to measure the stock performance of 100 leading dividend-paying emerging markets companies, selected by dividend yield. At the time of its November 2011 launch, Dow Jones Indexes announced the index would be licensed to underlie the iShares Dow Jones Emerging Markets Select Dividend ETF, listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Launched in 2006, the Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index is designed to measure the performance of 30 top stocks by dividend yield in the Asia/Pacific region, which includes Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore. The Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index is also licensed to serve as the basis for seven other iShares ETFs, all of which trade on European exchanges.
"The licensing of the Dow Jones Emerging Markets Select Dividend Index and the Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index by iShares underscores the continued demand for Dow Jones Indexes' inventory of global dividend gauges," said Michael A. Petronella, President, Dow Jones Indexes.
Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, pioneered the dividend-index space with the launch of the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index in 2003, and since that time has expanded its dividend-index offerings to include a full suite of country- and region-specific measures. In September 2011, the company unveiled Europe and Eurozone Dividend Indexes, as well as distributing versions of dividend indexes for Europe, Eurozone, Germany and France.
For details on methodology, please click here for the Dow Jones Emerging Markets Select Dividend Index and here for the Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index.
About Dow Jones Indexes
Dow Jones Indexes (www.djindexes.com) is a leading full-service index provider that develops, maintains and licenses indexes for use as benchmarks and as the basis of investment products. Best-known for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Indexes offers more than 130,000 equity indexes as well as fixed-income and alternative indexes, including measures of hedge funds, commodities and real estate. Dow Jones Indexes employs clear, unbiased and systematic methodologies that are fully integrated within index families. Dow Jones Indexes is part of a joint venture company owned 90 percent by CME Group Inc. (www.cmegroup.com) and 10 percent by Dow Jones & Company, Inc. (www.dowjones.com), a News Corporation company (Nasdaq:NWS) (Nasdaq:NWSA) (ASX:NWS) (ASX:NWSLV) (www.newscorp.com).
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