NEW YORK, March 31, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, announced that it will launch tomorrow, April 1, a series of indexes designed as benchmarks for balanced and multiasset-class portfolios with risk profiles that become more conservative over time. The Dow Jones Target Date Indexes and Dow Jones US Target Date Indexes each comprise 10 indexes with "target dates" set at five-year intervals out to 45 years.
The global index series has been licensed to State Street Global Advisors, the world's largest institutional fund manager, who relaunched an existing series of portfolios as target retirement date funds on March 1, 2005. The funds will use the global Dow Jones Target Date Indexes as a benchmark. The Dow Jones Target Today, Dow Jones Target 2015, Dow Jones Target 2025, Dow Jones Target 2035 and Dow Jones Target 2045 funds provide a simpler solution for employee investments with a set-it-and-forget-it investment approach that gradually grows more conservative as the target year indicated in the fund's title approaches.
With an established 10-year track record, SSgA's Target Date fund series seeks to deliver consistent, risk-adjusted returns through a multiasset-class investment strategy diversified across equities, fixed income and cash.
"Time-based investment programs, such as target-date or retirement-date mutual funds, have grown in popularity and invested assets recently," said Ridgely Walters, senior director of client development and sales at Dow Jones Indexes. "The Dow Jones Target Date Indexes are the first total portfolio indexes utilizing this investment approach-available to investors and product manufacturers to meet their need for an appropriate and authoritative benchmark."
"Until the launch of the Dow Jones Target Date Indexes, no other index provider offered a standardized and transparent target-date benchmark against which defined contribution recordkeepers, plan sponsors and investors could measure a manager's investment performance," said Michael Dalis, director of Institutional Sub-Advisory Services at State Street Global Advisors. "The SSgA Target Date funds series uniquely combines access to these well-constructed benchmarks, globally diversified portfolios and a cost structure designed to appeal to both plan sponsors and their recordkeepers."
Each Dow Jones Target Date Index allocates among stocks, bonds and cash on a monthly basis to hit predefined relative risk levels. The global index series includes nine Dow Jones equity indexes, four Lehman bond indexes, the Lehman Brothers Government Bond Index, Lehman Brothers Corporate Bond Index, Lehman Brothers Mortgage Bond Index and Lehman Brothers Majors (ex U.S.) Index and the Lehman one-to-three months T-bill index as the cash component. The U.S. target index series consists of six Dow Jones equity indexes, three Lehman bond indexes and the Lehman one-to-three months T-bill index.
Over the life of each Dow Jones Target Date Index, the relative risk of the index ranges from 90% of the risk of the global equity market at its most aggressive point, to 20% of the global equity markets risk at its most conservative point-when the index reaches its target date. At this point, each index will convert into the Dow Jones Today index, with a constant 20% relative risk exposure.
The methodology, as well as a full list of components including weightings and values of the Dow Jones Target Date Indexes, will be available tomorrow, April 1, at www.djindexes.com.
Journalists may e-mail questions regarding this press release to PR-Indexes@dowjones.com or contact a member of the Dow Jones Indexes/STOXX public relations group:
New York: Sybille A. Reitz, +1-212-597-5735 Karishma Thakkar, +1-212-597-5718 Frankfurt: Simona Deckers, +49-69-97142894 Nicole Wesch, +49-69-97142893
For questions about the SSgA Product, please contact:
Arlene Roberts State Street Global Advisors +1-617-664-3933
Note to Editors
About Dow Jones Indexes
Dow Jones Indexes is a premier global provider of investable indexes, including the Dow Jones Averages, the Dow Jones Global Titans 50, the Dow Jones Asian Titans 50, the Dow Jones Sector Titans, the Dow Jones Country Titans Indexes and is co-owner of the Pan-European Dow Jones STOXX Indexes. Dow Jones Indexes is part of Dow Jones & Company, which publishes the world's most vital business and financial news and information.
In addition to Dow Jones Indexes, Dow Jones & Company (NYSE: DJ; dowjones.com) publishes The Wall Street Journal and its international and online editions, Barron's and the Far Eastern Economic Review, Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, and the Ottaway group of community newspapers. Dow Jones is co-owner with Reuters Group of Factiva, with Hearst of SmartMoney and with NBC Universal of the CNBC television operations in Asia and Europe. Dow Jones also provides news content to CNBC and radio stations in the U.S.
About SSgA
State Street Global Advisors, the investment management group of State Street Corporation, delivers investment strategies and integrated solutions to clients worldwide across every asset class, investment approach and style. With $1.4 trillion in investment programs and portfolios, State Street Global Advisors has investment centers in Boston, Hong Kong, London, Milan, Montreal, Munich, Paris, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Zurich, and offices in 28 cities worldwide. For more information, visit State Street Global Advisors at www.ssga.com