MUMBAI, India, Aug. 4, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, is expanding its Dow Jones Global Titans family by adding a blue-chip index for India. The launch of the Dow Jones India Titans 30 was announced today by Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation in Mumbai, India. Dow Jones Indexes is a business unit of Dow Jones & Company, a News Corporation company (NYSE:NWS) (NYSE:NWS.A) (ASX:NWS) (ASX:NWSLV).
Mr. Murdoch said: "Today, I am excited to announce the launch of a new blue-chip index for India. We are unveiling the Dow Jones India Titans -- a 30-stock index tracking the stock-market performance of prominent Indian companies. It will be licensed to financial institutions as the basis of investment products, such as exchange-traded funds."
Mr. Murdoch added: "The growing importance of India to the world and to Dow Jones and News Corporation is obvious to all. What the world needs is a trusted means of measuring this country's development and an index that can be used by investors around the world to track the progress of Indian companies and the Indian economy. We will see huge capital flows both from and to India in coming years and that is an opportunity for us as a financial information company, as well as for international investors who want to take advantage of this profound trend."
The Dow Jones India Titans 30 Index measures the performance of the 30 largest and most liquid stocks listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India. The final composition of the index is based on ranking by free-float market capitalization and 12-month average daily trading volume.
The top five companies in the index by free float market capitalization are: Reliance Industries Ltd. (Basic Materials), Infosys Technologies Ltd. (Technology), HDFC Ltd. (Financials), Bharti Airtel Ltd. (Telecommunications), and Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (Industrials). The three biggest sectors represented in the index are Financials, Basic Materials, and Oil & Gas.
The Dow Jones India Titans 30 Index is free-float market capitalization weighted with individual components capped at 10%. The index is calculated in U.S. dollar and Indian rupee and reviewed annually in March. As of July 31, 2008, the Dow Jones India Titans 30 (U.S. $) has gained 62.03% back tested from its base date, December 31, 2005(1). Daily index history is available back to December 31, 2005. The full list of companies, including weighting and values of the Dow Jones India Titans 30 Index, is available on www.djindexes.com.
Journalists may e-mail questions regarding this press release to PR-Indexes@dowjones.com.
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About Dow Jones Indexes
A full-service index provider, Dow Jones Indexes 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 also is co-owner of the Dow Jones STOXX indexes, the world's leading pan-European indexes, and together with Wilshire Associates, provides the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Index family, which is anchored by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 and covers more than 12,000 securities in 61 markets. Beyond equity indexes, Dow Jones Indexes maintains a number of alternative indexes, including measures of the hedge fund and commodity markets. Dow Jones indexes are maintained according to clear, unbiased and systematic methodologies that are fully integrated within index families. www.djindexes.com
Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (NYSE:NWS) (NYSE:NWS.A) (ASX:NWS) (ASX:NWSLV) (www.newscorp.com). Dow Jones is a leading provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates community-based information franchises. Dow Jones owns 50% of SmartMoney and 33% of STOXX Ltd. and provides news content to radio stations in the U.S.
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News Corporation (NYSE:NWS) (NYSE:NWS.A) (ASX:NWS) (ASX:NWSLV) had total assets as of March 31, 2008 of approximately US$62 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$32 billion. News Corporation is a diversified global media company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; magazines and inserts; newspapers and information services; book publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and the Pacific Basin.
(1) The Dow Jones India Titans 30 Index was first published on December 31, 2005. All estimated daily historical closing prices prior to that date are based on back-testing, i.e. calculations of how the index might have performed in the past if it had existed. Back-tested performance information is purely hypothetical and is solely for informational purposes. It does not represent actual performance, and past performance is not indicative of future results.