With flows into sustainable funds turning positive in early 2026¹—led by Europe—a key challenge may now be incorporating sustainability considerations without materially altering fixed income risk.

In sustainable fixed income index construction, screening is often used to improve the sustainability profile of an index, but it also tends to change the risk profile of the universe. In many cases, however, the objective is not to build a fundamentally different index strategy, but rather to incorporate sustainability within the benchmark while preserving a broadly similar risk/return profile. Screens alone will often not provide that desired proximity. Using the construction of the iBoxx Euro SRI Corporate Bond Custom Index (iBoxx SRI Index)—which is an index that incorporates sustainability screens created from the iBoxx € Corporates—as an example, this blog examines how sustainability-related exclusions reshape sector and credit exposures, and how structured weighting rules can help keep the resulting risk profile closely aligned with the benchmark.

Exclusions Impact

Principled sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) screening tends to remove a meaningful share of constituents from the underlying benchmark. As of May 31, 2026, the issuer count declined from 779 to 591—about a 25% reduction from the iBoxx € Corporates to the iBoxx SRI Index. This issuer reduction had clear sector effects: Energy weight fell sharply from 3.11% to 0.10% due to fossil fuel screens, while other sectors saw more modest declines. In a market cap-weighted framework, excluded sectors redistribute weight to remaining sectors proportionally, with Financials absorbing the largest share. Left unchecked, this mechanical effect can create unintended sector tilts.

Index construction can help offset these shifts. In the iBoxx SRI Index, sector caps—particularly on Core Financials—limit excessive reallocation. Core Financials, at 39.24% as of May 2026, remained within defined bounds, showing that sector balance was maintained even as the eligible universe evolved.

Controlled Concentration

A smaller universe naturally increases concentration. The top 10 issuer weight rose from 11.13% to 12.20%, the largest issuer from 1.44% to 1.73% and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) from 0.39% to 0.46%. While increases are expected, overall concentration remained low. With 591 issuers and a 12.20% top 10 share, diversification remained strong. Rating-based issuer caps—ranging from 2.5% (BBB) to 10% (AAA)—systematically limit single-name concentration. The increase is measurable but controlled by design.

Credit Alignment

SRI strategies are often assumed to tilt toward higher-quality issuers, reflecting expectations around stronger governance. The data in Exhibit 3 show a more neutral outcome.

Credit quality remained closely aligned with the iBoxx € Corporates benchmark. A rated bonds were mostly unchanged (44.1% for the iBoxx SRI index versus 44.2% for the iBoxx € Corporates benchmark), BBB weight was slightly higher (48.0% versus 46.7%), and AA/AAA was marginally lower (7.9% versus 9.1%). Rather than improving credit quality, the SRI framework preserves a neutral profile consistent with the iBoxx € Corporates benchmark objectives. A minimum average rating constraint acts as a backstop, reducing BBB weights if needed to maintain overall quality. This alignment was reflected in broader metrics: yield (3.65% versus 3.66%) and duration (4.37 versus 4.42) remained essentially unchanged. Despite a reduction in the number of bonds (4,265 to 3,334), market depth remained sufficient to support benchmark-like liquidity.

Consistent Performance

Over the past 10 years, the iBoxx SRI Index has closely tracked its benchmark, with no material performance divergence. Both indices followed the same macro cycles—from pre-2020 rate compression to the 2022 drawdown and subsequent recovery—remaining closely aligned throughout. The co-movement is intentional, reflecting a methodology for the iBoxx SRI Index that seeks to preserve the benchmark's risk/return profile while applying sustainability screens.

Sustainability exclusions reshape sector and issuer composition—as intended—but this need not alter the risk profile. As shown, index construction plays a key role in preserving diversification and benchmark-like characteristics. One key point is whether the index methodology manages these tradeoffs systematically, focusing on sustainability goals without unintended benchmark deviations.

¹ Segal, Mark, "Sustainable Fund Flows Return to Positive Territory, Driven by Rebound in Europe: Morningstar," ESG Today, May 28, 2026.

This content may be AI-assisted and is composed, reviewed, edited, and approved by S&P Global.

The posts on this blog are opinions, not advice. Please read our Disclaimers.

The Crypto Ecosystem and Digital Asset Index Landscape

As digital assets continue to move into the institutional mainstream, investors are increasingly looking for ways to gain exposure to the space in a holistic way that considers all parts of the crypto value chain, from equities to digital assets. The S&P Digital Markets 50 Index is a hybrid benchmark that combines listed companies tied to the crypto ecosystem with direct exposure to major digital assets. This cross-asset approach provides broader access to the blockchain economy than digital assets alone.

Methodology of the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index¹

Looking at how the index is constructed, the equity portion constitutes 70% of the index and is made up of 35 U.S.-listed and -domiciled public companies from the S&P Global BMI that are involved in crypto and digital asset infrastructure (operators, infrastructure providers, financial services, blockchain applications and supporting technologies). These companies build the infrastructure and services that are central to the digital transformation, spanning areas including exchanges, custody, payments, on-ramps, analytics, hardware and institutional rails.

The digital assets portion comprises 30% of the index and is made up of 15 cryptocurrencies selected from the S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Asset (BDA) Index. The inclusion of native protocols and assets like Bitcoin highlights the latter's status in the crypto market as the largest asset, often given the moniker "digital gold." Ethereum and Solana represent the use of protocols as Layer 2 networks and platforms, where much of the infrastructure for tokenization and trading is being built. Bitcoin and Ethereum are categorized as Level 1 crypto assets and individually capped at 5%, while all other crypto assets in the index are individually capped at 2.5%.

At the heart of the index is having a mixed representation of constituents and striking a balance between the equity and digital asset components, while also considering the weights of companies that are highly related to the crypto ecosystem (which we refer to as Level 1) and those that are somewhat related and contribute to the theme (which we refer to as Level 2). Level 1 companies with higher crypto ecosystem relatedness are capped at 5% to allow weight for other emerging Level 1 companies that may have a lower market cap and support the diversification of the index. Level 2 companies, which may have some involvement in DeFi, but a lower level, are capped at 2.5% at rebalance but have some runway intra-quarter. This can be valuable, ensuring that mega-cap companies like Alphabet (Google) and Nvidia—which have some involvement in crypto—do not dominate the index compared as they may with a market cap-weighted approach.

With the growing number of crypto-related companies, the index's equity component dropped Nvidia and Google during the June rebalance, with the theme purity of the equity segment increasing over time. As the crypto ecosystem develops, the "purity" of companies represented in the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index has increased over time when looking at changes to the composition of Level 1 and Level 2 companies, as shown in Exhibit 3.

Performance of the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index Compared to Relevant Benchmarks

The S&P Digital Markets 50 Index provides market participants with a view of some of the upside capture of the crypto market and characteristics of the equity market, with a lower downside versus pure crypto assets. For example, in 2022, the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index declined 15% less than the standalone S&P Bitcoin Index, which saw a downside of 64%. In 2021, the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index outperformed both the S&P 500 and the S&P Bitcoin Index, demonstrating the potential tailwinds that can occur when both crypto-linked equities and the digital assets universe beyond crypto are outperforming.

When compared to a similar multi-asset index—the S&P 500 and S&P Bitcoin 70/30 Blend Index—the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index outperformed over various time periods, including 2026 YTD, the three-year horizon, and since the index's first value date on Dec. 19, 2019.

For market participants with a strong interest in the future of digital assets and the crypto ecosystem, the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index could serve as a useful measure of this dual approach across equities and digital assets.

To learn more about the index, please see the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index brochure.

¹ Please see the S&P Crypto Ecosystem Index Methodology for the full details, such as constraint relaxation, turnover mitigation rules and corporate action treatment.

The posts on this blog are opinions, not advice. Please read our Disclaimers.

As Brazil's capital markets continue to mature, market participants now have access to a new tool for measuring and tracking volatility: the S&P/B3 VIX^® Futures Index. Launched on May 25, 2026, this index represents a significant addition to the S&P/B3 Futures Indices and a meaningful step forward for the theme of volatility in Brazil.

What Is the S&P/B3 VIX Futures Index?

In December 2025, B3 launched VIX futures contracts on the S&P/B3 Ibovespa VIX—an implied volatility index that measures the market's 30-day expectations for the volatility of the Ibovespa, Brazil's headline equity benchmark. These contracts give market participants a direct and tradeable way to express a view on Brazilian equity volatility and to hedge equity market downturns.

The S&P/B3 VIX Futures Index is built based on these contracts and measures the performance of maintaining a constant 30-day long position in S&P/B3 Ibovespa VIX Futures. The index holds the next two near-term VIX futures contracts at any given time and rolls daily from the first- to second-month contracts in equal fractional amounts to maintain the constant one-month position.

Notably, the methodology is similar to the well-established S&P 500^® VIX Short-Term Futures Index, which underlies some investable volatility products for U.S. markets.

Putting the Index to Work

The S&P/B3 VIX Futures Index serves an important function in the equity volatility ecosystem. Because VIX itself is a statistical metric that is not replicable, a rolling futures index could be used to support volatility ETFs, structured products and other financial products. However, it is important to understand that while the S&P/B3 VIX Futures Index tends to be highly correlated to the spot S&P/B3 Ibovespa VIX (see Exhibit 1), the two indices are unlikely to experience similar percentage returns—particularly over longer periods of time. This is the result of a couple major factors.

First, the spot S&P/B3 Ibovespa VIX measures real-time market expectations of Ibovespa volatility, whereas the S&P/B3 VIX Futures Index reflects the forward price of volatility one month out; hence, the S&P/B3 VIX Futures Index will typically experience smaller changes in magnitude compared to the spot VIX.

Second, VIX futures markets are typically in contango—front-month contracts tend to trade cheaper than next-month contracts. As the S&P/B3 VIX Futures Index rolls from the cheaper to the pricier contract, it experiences a negative roll yield that erodes value over time. This is why volatility products built on the index are typically held for short-term periods.

This dynamic is evident in the more established U.S. market (see Exhibit 2), where the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index has steadily decayed toward zero since 2020, even as the spot VIX continues to oscillate within its historical range, highlighting how negative roll yield can erode the value over time.

A New Chapter for Brazilian Volatility Markets

The launch of the S&P/B3 VIX Futures Index marks an important milestone for Brazil's derivatives market. The index follows the approach of the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index, which underlies an ecosystem of tradable volatility products built on S&P 500 volatility. With Brazil entering an uncertain political phase ahead of upcoming elections and external headwinds such as U.S. tariffs, having reliable tools to measure and manage Brazilian market volatility could be essential. In a market defined by uncertainty, the S&P/B3 VIX Futures Index expands the risk management tools available to navigate volatile market cycles.

The posts on this blog are opinions, not advice. Please read our Disclaimers.

The Financials sector has traditionally been categorized as value (i.e., stocks considered undervalued but with stable fundamentals) instead of growth (i.e., stocks with higher valuations but that are expected to grow faster than the market). Historical data supported this perception until recently (see Exhibit 1). By the end of May 2026, the weight gap for the Financials sector between the S&P Developed Ex-U.S. LargeMidCap Value and S&P Developed Ex-U.S. LargeMidCap Growth narrowed to less than 1% (24.3% versus 23.4%, respectively), after being around 21% one year prior (35.1% versus 14.3%, respectively). This change shows a notable convergence between styles.

The recent performance of international equities played a key role in this convergence. Driven by diversification away from U.S. equities, international equities have seen renewed interest. After posting one of its strongest annual performances in 2025 (up 35.1%), the S&P Developed Ex-U.S. LargeMidCap's outperformance persisted this year; by the end of May 2026, the index was up 16.1% YTD, while the S&P 500^® was up 11.3% YTD (see Exhibit 2). Financials, the largest GICS^® sector within the index by weight, has been the primary driver of this performance. It surged 52.0% in 2025 and was up 32.8% YTD by May 31, 2026.

To understand why this performance altered the sector's style profile, it is helpful to revisit how S&P Dow Jones Indices determines the style of an individual stock. According to the S&P Global BMI Methodology, a growth score-to-value score ratio is calculated for each stock. The style scores are calculated using standardized fundamental data of the company, as noted in a previous blog. Depending on the score, the float-adjusted market cap of a stock is assigned completely to the growth or value version of the index or is distributed proportionally based on its relative distance to the average value and growth scores. Exhibit 3 illustrates this classification.

With that framework in mind, the style reclassification is explained by two main factors. First, three of the four value factors (book-to-price, cash-flow-to-price and sales-to-price) are directly affected by share price movements. Since price appears in the denominator of these ratios, sharp price appreciation weakens the value score, assuming that balance sheet fundamentals do not rise at the same pace.

On the other hand, the growth score focuses on the growth of earnings and sales. In recent years, European banks have seen an improvement in profitability, while major Japanese banks reached record profit levels in 2025 for a second consecutive year.

Together, these developments have created a style reclassification effect. On one hand, valuation-based value signals weakened as bank share prices surged. On the other hand, rising earnings and improving performance profiles strengthened growth factors.

This shift was clearly visible during the September 2025 rebalance. Compared to the prior year, the weight of Financials in the S&P Developed Ex-U.S. LargeMidCap Growth increased from 12.5% to 24.0%, while its weight in the S&P Developed Ex-U.S. LargeMidCap Value declined from 32.3% to 26.1%. During this period, 19 stocks transitioned from being categorized as blended to growth, and 11 companies switched from value to growth, adding approximately USD 2.1 trillion in market capitalization to the S&P Developed Ex-U.S. LargeMidCap Growth (see Exhibit 4).

Large banks have not only driven index performance; they have also contributed to the migration across styles. BBVA, Royal Bank of Canada, UniCredit and Mitsubishi UFJ, which were part of the S&P Developed Ex-U.S. LargeMidCap Value before the September 2025 rebalance, represented 4.9% of the S&P Developed Ex-U.S. LargeMidCap Growth's total weight in May 2026.

In brief, the strong performance of international Financials in recent years, driven by both rising share prices and improved fundamentals, has altered the long-standing perception of the sector as exclusively value oriented. Internationally, Financials has become more balanced in terms of style, converging between growth and value weights.

The posts on this blog are opinions, not advice. Please read our Disclaimers.

For more than a century, index providers have served a specific function in capital markets: define the standard, calculate the benchmark and the data, license the IP. The infrastructure was built for a world of market opens and closes, batch file delivery, and intermediated access. That infrastructure continues to work extraordinarily well.

But a parallel system is being built alongside it, and it operates on fundamentally different assumptions.

On-chain markets run 24/7. Settlement is programmable. Capital moves across protocols without intermediaries. Products that have no equivalent in traditional markets (perpetual futures without expiration, cross-chain margining, prediction markets scaling to billions in monthly volume) are being created and adopted at a pace that traditional market structure was never designed to match. Tokenized versions of traditional instruments (treasuries, credit, equities) are now accessible on-chain, reaching approximately $30 billion¹ and growing rapidly. These are not new asset classes. They are existing assets delivered through new, globally accessible, programmable infrastructure.

S&P Dow Jones Indices has created value by setting the benchmarks markets trust - through transparent methodologies, disciplined governance, and benchmark integrity that institutions rely on to allocate capital with confidence. That same value is now increasingly essential in DeFi, where market growth depends on trusted data, clear standards, and transparent infrastructure.

When spot crypto ETFs launched in the U.S., the benchmarks behind them came from crypto-native providers, not from traditional index firms. Those providers built real-time calculation capability, secured regulatory standing, and locked in relationships with ETF issuers while most of us were still evaluating the space. That is a competitive fact worth acknowledging, not explaining away.

However, the next wave of on-chain financial products will need index standards for asset classes that don't yet have them: DeFi protocol benchmarks, tokenized equity indices, on-chain structured products. And they will need those standards from providers with the governance, methodology, and institutional credibility that this industry was built on. That is where traditional index providers can meaningfully progress the industry, if we move with intention.

Moving with intention means three things.

First, it means becoming a participant in on-chain infrastructure, not just a licensor to it. Publishing index data through oracle networks. Running validators. Understanding staking not as a speculative activity but as a utility that generates data, connectivity, and credibility within protocol ecosystems. This is unfamiliar territory for the traditional index industry. It requires new models, not the abandonment of old principles.

Second, it means building technology that meets markets where they are. End-of-day batch calculation served a world that closed at 4PM. On-chain markets never close. Real-time, continuous, API-native data delivery is not a feature request. It is the minimum viable infrastructure for credibility.

Third, it means recognizing that standards lock in early. The index methodologies embedded in smart contracts and DeFi protocols today will be the defaults that institutional capital builds on tomorrow. Waiting for the market to mature before engaging is a strategy for irrelevance. The S&P 500^® became the global equity benchmark not only because it was the best U.S. large cap equity index when passive investing scaled. But also, because it was already the standard.

The same dynamic is playing out on-chain. The question is whether the next generation of financial market standards will carry the credibility of the institutions that built this industry, and as the world's leading index provider, we're aiming to lead the charge.

From Strategy to Execution

As demand for broader, diversified exposure to DeFi continues to grow, S&P Dow Jones Indices serves as a bridge between markets and investors—transforming complexity into transparency, investability, and governance across digital asset markets.

Some of our work is already visible:

• Facilitating fund tokenization. In July 2025, S&P DJI collaborated with Centrifuge to license the S&P 500 for fund tokenization, leading to the first licensed on-chain S&P 500 index fund in September 2025.
• Pioneering indices on-chain. In early 2026, S&P DJI and Kaiko announced the tokenization of the iBoxx U.S. Treasuries Index on the blockchain. The significance is not only symbolic. It marks the first time a major index provider has made a financial benchmark available as a native digital asset, with embedded index data distribution and permissioning ready for licensing.
• Innovative digital asset indices. In October 2025 the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index was launched, combining cryptocurrencies and publicly traded crypto-linked equities into a single benchmark. That approach reflects an increasingly important market reality: the boundary between digital assets and traditional securities is becoming less useful than the broader ecosystem view investors increasingly need.

More broadly, as digital assets and tokenized markets continue to institutionalize, S&P Global is uniquely positioned as an enabler between TradFi and DeFi. Through our sister-divisions, Stablecoin Stability Assessments (now on-chain through Chainlink), the first credit rating of a DeFi protocol (Sky Protocol), and tax solutions for digital assets are among the early solutions S&P Global brings to the digital asset community.

If the next era of capital markets will be more programmable, more continuous, and more globally accessible, then the role of the index provider must evolve with it. The opportunity is not just to extend existing benchmarks into new channels. It is to bring the transparency, governance, and institutional trust that defined the last century of market infrastructure into the one now being built.

¹ Tokenized Real-World Assets Hit $30 Billion as Crypto Market Matures - CoinCentral

The posts on this blog are opinions, not advice. Please read our Disclaimers.