IN THIS LIST

SPICE IndexBuilder™: Your Sandbox for Building and Testing Index Ideas

Highlight Reel - Evolving Trends Redefining Index Usage

What is SPIVA?

Tracking Fixed Income Performance and Innovation

What’s the Role of Sectors and Factors in Concentrated Markets?

Index TV - Oct 16, 2025

SPICE IndexBuilder™: Your Sandbox for Building and Testing Index Ideas

Length 3:18

Length 3:18

Explore a powerful new tool designed to help users create customized indices quickly and intuitively via S&P DJI’s SPICE platform.

[TRANSCRIPT]

SPICE IndexBuilder™: Your Sandbox for Building and Testing Index Ideas

SPICE, S&P Dow Jones Indices’ flexible, easy-to-use platform, just got better.

Meet SPICE IndexBuilder—An innovative self-service tool for customizing indices.

With SPICE IndexBuilder, users can easily prototype, back-test and order custom indices—faster and more intuitively than ever.

Whether you’re an ETF issuer, structured products desk, exchange, financial advisor or plan sponsor, SPICE IndexBuilder lets you customize indices for your unique strategies and objectives.

For the first time, users can independently build S&P DJI custom indices from a diverse universe of S&P DJI branded indices across all major equity investment themes, geographies, sectors… and more.

SPICE IndexBuilder enables users to identify underlying indices based on:

Key Characteristics
Fundamentals
Composition Analytics
Performance

Helping you select the most suitable underlying index for the objective at hand.

With SPICE IndexBuilder, you can easily…

Preview rebalance and reconstitution schedules
Define precise parameters that control the scope and weight of index constituents
Screen constituent weights in real-time by sector and geography as rules are drafted and refined
Assign settings that determine calculation frameworks across currencies, return types and decrement strategies

SPICE IndexBuilder empowers you to…

Back-test index concepts
View detailed performance and composition analytics and advanced charting across the entire history of the index
Compare multiple versions of an S&P DJI custom index against the underlying benchmark to identify the one that best aligns with your objectives
Easily export important information about your concept to share with colleagues and clients
Request delivery across SPICE and multiple vendors

With just one click, you can order your index and access an expedited launch process, subject to approval and licensing, making SPICE IndexBuilder the go-to platform for self-service indexing.

In short, SPICE IndexBuilder simplifies the complex process of index creation into a streamlined experience.

SPICE IndexBuilder. Your sandbox for building and testing index ideas.

To learn more about SPICE and explore how you can put the power to customize indices at your fingertips, visit spice-indices.com.

Index TV - Oct 09, 2025

Highlight Reel - Evolving Trends Redefining Index Usage

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Length 5:05

What's the role of index providers in today's markets? Watch highlights from S&P DJI's Brandon Hass, Cerulli Associates' Brendan Powers, Delta Wealth Advisors' Niko Finnigan and Sunpointe Investments' Rob Mooney’s deep dive into how advisors are putting an expanding range of index tools to work to build model portfolios, increase efficiencies and tailor strategies to meet client objectives.

[Transcript]

Jeane Coakley:

How do you use indices in your practice today, and how has that evolved in recent years?

Niko, we'll start with you.

Niko Finnigan:

I think that how we're using indices obviously is in model portfolios, as both Brendan and Brandon were speaking about, and, in using these indices, we always talk around the office, we say, standardize the process, customize the advice. So, we're able to spend time with our clients during the work hours. Clients don't necessarily want to be having a meeting at 8:00 at night.
That allows us then to do our investment research on the weekends and at nights outside of market hours, because when clients want to speak, they want to speak during normal hours, that is, right. So, using the indices, we're able to then build upon it over time.

Jeane Coakley:

How do you evaluate the indices that sit underneath ETFs or SMAs that you use?

Rob Mooney:

If I'm looking at a really esoteric corner of the market, I look to see who built the index, and, I was really pleased to see in your research that other advisors feel the same way that I do. The other thing that's important to me when evaluating an index provider is, does the index provider have the capability and resources to evolve their index as the underlying companies evolve across time?

Jeane Coakley:

Alright, Brandon. Let's get back to what role does direct indexing play in expanding index use, and how is index design evolving to support that?

Brandon Hass:

There's a handful of things that you can do with direct indexing that are fairly unique, when you're comparing them to other conventional wrappers like ETPs and mutual funds. So, within a direct index, you own the underlying securities, and, so, what you're able to do is address this concept of scale that we've talked about with financial planning and rules-based structures, but
also customization, and those two things tend to be historically oxymoronic, or, at least, kind of a zero-sum game, where you have to kind of weigh the benefits of customization or scale. And, what we're finding is, based on this convergence of factors, that a lot of asset managers and wealth managers alike can deliver both at the same time, right. It's no longer a zero-sum game,
and, so, as we think about this as an index provider. I mean, indexing is in the name, direct indexing, right. So, we are product-agnostic, we are wrapper-agnostic, and, so, most direct indexes or indices exist within an SMA, or within now a UMA structure, but the index itself is still kind of the bedrock of the intellectual property, is what kind of guides the investment solution, or
the investment solution that tracks the benchmark or the index itself. And, so, if you look at the market and the landscape today, a lot of that is still in large-cap core.

Jeane Coakley:

So, why do you think some advisors still underutilize index providers, and how do you think they could change that?

Brendan Powers:

There's a gap between those who are using index-based product and those who are engaging or are using content from index providers. How do we see that gap closing? I think one of the issues preventing that from closing right now is advisors frankly don't know the resources are available. When they're using index-based products, they tend to get information from asset managers that are building those products, but they're not going necessarily to the source who are building the indices that that product is constructed off of.

Jeane Coakley:

What are some of the tools provided by S&P DJI that you've found most useful in this practice?

Niko Finnigan:

Knowledge is like an island, the bigger it gets, the more there is to explore. And, so, we're always trying to say, okay, well, we understood this about the index, how can we take it to the next level, where can we learn about this or that. And, so, like you were saying, having those white papers, you can consume it when you want to consume it, right.

And you're not being pushed into a product. And, so, you're just, it's education, you're saying, okay, do I want more of this in my portfolio, do I want less of it? And, if I did, where do I swap it? And then, because it is rules-based, you can go and back-test it. So, I always tell our clients, we look at making trades is like taking a test. You want to spend more time preparing for the test
than actually taking the test. So, you want to be researching and studying ahead of time, not just making willy-nilly trades in the force of a market, ripping up or down, right.

Index TV - Sep 10, 2025

What is SPIVA?

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Length 2:29

For over two decades, S&P Dow Jones Indices has measured the performance of actively managed funds against their index benchmarks across the world through the SPIVA Scorecards. Take a closer look at the fundamental principles that guide our SPIVA research and discover the insights these scorecards offer across asset classes, regions and market segments.

[TRANSCRIPT]

What is SPIVA^®?

For over two decades, S&P Dow Jones Indices has measured the performance of actively managed funds against their index benchmarks across the world through the SPIVA Scorecards

S&P Indices versus Active, or SPIVA, provides a robust, widely referenced suite of data on the active versus passive debate on a semiannual basis

Historically, SPIVA research shows that relatively few active funds manage to outperform their respective benchmark indices over most time periods, and the longer the data is tracked, the worse the results tend to be for active managers

The SPIVA Scorecard’s widely cited headline numbers are backed by a rich dataset that addresses issues related to measurement techniques, universe composition and fund survivorship

These data sets are rooted in the following four fundamental principles of the SPIVA Scorecard:

Survivorship Bias Correction
Apples-to-Apples Comparison
Asset-Weighted Returns
Style Consistency

Let’s dive a little deeper into each principle

Survivorship Bias Correction: Unlike other commonly available comparison reports, SPIVA Scorecards account for the entire opportunity set, which includes the funds that are liquidated or merged away—not just the survivors—thereby eliminating survivorship bias

Apples-to-Apples Comparison: SPIVA Scorecards avoid misclassification by measuring a fund's returns against the performance of a benchmark appropriate for that particular investment category

Asset-Weighted Returns: An accurate representation of how investors fared in a particular period can be ascertained by calculating weighted average returns, where each fund's return is weighted by net assets

Style Consistency: SPIVA Scorecards measure style consistency for each style category across different time horizons to account for drift, the tendency of funds to diverge from their initial investment categorization

What does SPIVA tell us?

From a practical perspective, SPIVA sheds light on the merits of passive versus active management and helps market participants identify where potential opportunities to outperform may exist

SPIVA Scorecards are available for the following regions:

Asia Ex-Japan
Australia
Canada
Europe
India
Japan
Latin America
MENA
New Zealand
South Africa
U.S.

In addition to the regional scorecards, our SPIVA series also includes the following analysis:

SPIVA After-Tax: Comparing the putative after-tax performance of indices and active funds

SPIVA Institutional: Examining long-term gross-of-fee returns and net-of-fee returns for active mutual funds, segregated institutional accounts and SMA/wrap accounts.

SPIVA Sustainability: Exploring the performance of sustainability-focused indices and actively managed funds

And coming soon...

SPIVA Blends: Comparing the performance of active fund combinations to identical combinations of their benchmarks

Want to learn more about S&P Dow Jones Indices SPIVA Scorecards?

Visit spglobal.com/spiva

Index TV - Sep 04, 2025

Tracking Fixed Income Performance and Innovation

Length 07:49

Length 07:49

What do duration, the yield curve and credit trends tell us about the evolving fixed income landscape? S&P DJI’s Anu Ganti and Ben Vörös explore the recent performance of S&P DJI’s iBoxx indices in Europe and highlight the latest innovations in the fixed income indexing toolkit.

[TRANSCRIPT]

Anu Ganti:

The first half of 2025 saw a divergence in fixed income performance in many markets for both corporate credit and government bonds, but how did this play out in Europe? And what do duration, the yield curve and credit trends tell us?

Hello, I'm Anu Ganti of S&P Dow Jones Indices, and I'm joined by my colleague, Ben Vörös, to explore the recent performance of S&P DJI's iBoxx indices in Europe, as well as unpacking new index innovations such as our fixed maturity indices.

Thanks so much for joining me today, Ben.

Ben Vörös:

It's a pleasure to be here.

Anu Ganti:

So to kick off, there are so many macro trends happening right now in 2025. Why don't you take us through some of these macro trends and the fixed income landscape, and what were some of the key trends that we saw in 2024 and so far this year?

Ben Vörös:

So, when we think about fixed income markets in the first half of 2025, we can really distinguish three main trends, or three main phenomena of interest.

The first one in the sovereign bond space is that there have been various forces pulling and pushing various regions around the world, which resulted in a significant performance differential in sovereign fixed income benchmarks around the world. At the top of the leaderboard, we've seen several Latin American indices coming out on top, namely Mexican bonds clocked up a performance of 9%, which is very strong in the fixed income space, and the Brazilian inflation-linked bonds and Peruvian government bonds also provided a high-single-digit return in the first half of 2025. At the bottom of the ledger, the S&P Japan Sovereign Bond Index dropped 3.6% as the Bank of Japan continued to pursue a policy of monetary tightening.

Turning to corporate credit, we've seen U.S. corporate credit indices outperforming both in the investment grade and the high yield space. And that outperformance over Europe came despite the fact that European credit spreads themselves did better than the U.S. ones, as duration exposure in Europe was heavily penalized, where in the U.S., there were tailwinds to taking on duration risk.

And the third interesting development we've seen is that there has been an increase in both trading volumes and open interest in futures contracts linked to the iBoxx benchmark series, and that's a sign of increased adoption by market participants in the fixed income tradable ecosystem.

Anu Ganti:

That's so interesting to see the growth in the fixed income tradable ecosystem.

And you talked about a couple of key trends here, including duration, corporate credit. These are important because there are a couple of the sources of outperformance, or alpha, for active fixed income managers that we've done a lot of research on, and also illiquidity. Why don't you take us through these three important sources and why they're so important?

Ben Vörös:

So, when we think about excess returns in the fixed income markets, we can categorize them by the three T's, which are time, trust and trading.

The first of these, which is time, refers to taking on a term or interest rate risk, and it is approximated by the relative performance of longer-dated bonds versus shorter-dated bonds.

Trust, the second of the three T's, corresponds to taking on more credit risk by tilting down the credit spectrum from sovereign bonds into investment grade and high yield bond universes.

The third of the three T's, trading, refers to getting exposure to illiquid bonds, and that is estimated by the relative performance of benchmark investment grade and high yield indices versus their liquid counterparts.

And if you look at how these three T's performed in Europe in the first half of the year, what we've seen is that two out of these three T's, namely trust and trading, have provided a tailwind to returns, but term, which is basically taking on duration risk, severely underperformed, as the whole of the Eurozone, but Germany in particular, has embarked on a massive fiscal loosening, and that resulted in increased bond issuance and, consequently, a jump in high duration yields.

Anu Ganti:

Interesting. And to see the dichotomy of U.S. versus Europe and the rest of the world is so important as investors navigate this landscape.

And speaking of the landscape, we've seen so much in the evolution of indexing within the fixed income space. Can you talk to us a little bit about some of the innovations within fixed income indexing, including our fixed maturity indices?

Ben Vörös:

So, when we think about innovation in the fixed income space, one that immediately comes to mind is fixed maturity indices. The way fixed maturity indices work is that they have a fixed maturity date, and they represent and track the performance of bonds which fall within that maturity range.

So, to be more specific, if you look at the iBoxx USD Corporates 2029 Index, for example, that index tracks the performance of investment grade bonds that mature in the year 2029. And the way these indices work is that they use the same broad diversified underlying investment grade bond universe which provides the beta of the market, but then they filter this universe to include only indices which mature in a specific year, in this case, in 2029. And what happens in the final year of a fixed maturity index is that maturing bonds are replaced by money market benchmark indices, or benchmarks, rather than corporate bonds. And by the end of the maturity year, the entire index will have been converted to an index of money market instruments, and it unwinds and matures at the end of the year.

And these fixed maturity indices are, maybe, especially useful in financial planning when the timing and the extent or amount of future cash flow needs are known in advance. And, in contrast to a single bond, which may mature in, this case, 2029, a key advantage of these fixed maturity indices is that, although they do have a fixed maturity date in the future, they still provide market participants with a diversified bond exposure rather than exposure to a single bond.

Anu Ganti:

These tools can be useful for us to keep in mind as we navigate the rest of 2025 looking to duration trends, corporate credit trends, illiquidity and the three T's as you call it.

Thank you so much, Ben, for taking the time to walk us through the dynamics within the fixed income indexing space in both the U.S. and Europe.

Ben Vörös:

Thanks very much.

Anu Ganti:

To learn more about S&P DJI's indices and the topics discussed today, please visit us at the link below.

spglobal.com/spdji/fixed-income

Index TV - Sep 02, 2025

What’s the Role of Sectors and Factors in Concentrated Markets?

Length 08:53

Length 08:53

Which sectors and factors have shown the strongest performance trends through recent market shifts? S&P DJI’s Ben Vörös joins Anu Ganti to explore the potential of indices to help market participants address concerns around concentration and unpack performance highlights from the first half of 2025.

[TRANSCRIPT]

Ben Vörös:

Volatility and recovery were major storylines for U.S. equities in the first half of the year, leading some market participants to take a closer look at defensive strategies.

Hello, I'm Ben Vörös of S&P Dow Jones Indices, and I'm joined by my colleague, Anu Ganti, to discuss the latest on concentration, home bias and the role of U.S. equities in Europe and other global markets, and which sectors and factors have outperformed and what this could mean for market participants with an eye on defense.

Thanks for joining, Anu.

Anu Ganti:

Great to be here.

Ben Vörös:

So, let's kick off with a look at how international and U.S. equity markets have behaved in the first half of 2025.

Anu Ganti:

Yes, well, it was really a tale of two markets in the first half of the year. The S&P 500^® recovered by more than 20% since the depths of the April lows that we saw. And we all remember the tariff-related tumult then. We saw continued record highs for the S&P 500, including on the final day of the quarter in Q2. So, really remarkable recovery here. Also, volatility remained relatively low, with the VIX^® closing the quarter below the 17 handle.

Now, what was particularly interesting was just the differences in size performance, looking at the U.S. and Europe. So, for example, in the U.S., we saw that mid and small caps underperformed large caps, but the S&P 400^® and the S&P 600^® were still up 7% and 5%. So, you saw this broadening of the rally. Meanwhile, in Europe, we actually saw that mid and smaller caps outperformed versus the S&P Europe 350^®. So, that was an interesting divergence to see across the size spectrum, both in the U.S. and Europe.

Now, coming to sentiment, we all remember the defensive sentiment in the first quarter, but that changed in the second quarter, and we saw that Information Technology and Communication Services were the leading sectors.

And coming to factors, which we'll talk about in a bit, we saw that high beta and momentum were the leaders. And, in fact, high beta overtook momentum outperforming the S&P 500 in Q2. So, these are some of the key themes that we saw in the first half of the year.

Now, looking internationally, we saw that the S&P Europe 350 actually outperformed, up 24% in U.S. dollar terms. And perhaps the weakness of the dollar may have been a tailwind here. And as we look ahead, as we have started H2, uncertainties remain, including tariff-related uncertainties, geopolitical risk, the future course of central banks, including the Fed in the U.S. and central banks all around the world, and inflation. So, these are some of the macro indicators that we're looking at as we go into H2.

Ben Vörös:

That's very interesting. And picking up on what you said about U.S. equity markets, why does it matter for European and other international market participants?

Anu Ganti:

Excellent question. So there's a couple of considerations here. One is when looking at the economic exposure of a company, we can think beyond the country of domicile. One example for you is the S&P 500. All U.S.-domiciled companies, but roughly 70% of the revenue is coming from the U.S. So, it's important to consider the geographic breakdown of revenues. So, 70% of that is coming from the U.S. The remainder is coming from the rest of the world, including roughly 10% from Europe. So, this may be potentially relevant for European market participants to consider when looking at their opportunity set.

Also, interestingly, we saw that our S&P 500 Foreign Revenue Exposure Index has outperformed versus the S&P 500 U.S. Revenue Exposure Index. Part of that tailwind may have been the weakness of the dollar that we talked about, potentially benefiting multinational companies that get a greater share of their revenues from overseas. So, that's revenues.

The other consideration is, of course, home bias, and important for European investors and market participants to keep that in mind. And we can apply a country and sector perspective for this. So, for example, if you look at our S&P World Index, the U.S. makes up more than 70% of the country weight. If you look at sectors, the S&P 500 Information Technology is actually larger than that of China, which is pretty remarkable, if you think about it.

So, looking at the S&P Europe 350, for example, it has greater overweights to, for example, Financials, Industrials and Health Care. And, historically, our research has shown that adding U.S. exposure has potentially helped to mitigate that risk and offer that diversification.

Ben Vörös:

Switching direction a little, mega caps and concentration have been at the forefront of market participants' minds. How can indices help allay and handle some of these concerns?

Anu Ganti:

Excellent question. And you're right that mega caps have been top of mind in 2023, 2024, in the first half of this year, with our S&P 500 Top 50 up 14%, outperforming the S&P 500. So, we've seen market concentration concerns, relatively high market concentration, if you look compared to history. We've also seen extremes in momentum.

So, we really have these unusually stretched extensions in these trends. And, historically, we've seen that mean reversion, which, of course, is difficult to predict in advance. So, this may be an interesting time to be examining equal-weight strategies, which, for example, have that exposure to small size. Also have that anti-momentum bias. And, historically, we've seen that, after peaks in market concentration, equal weight has tended to outperform. So, that may be something interesting to examine, given the current circumstances in the market. And, of course, we know that equal weight has outperformed over the long term, when looking at history.

Now, coming to a sector perspective, we've actually seen a similar trend. And we can think of sectors as tools. For example, we have cap-weighted sectors. We have equal-weighted sectors. And, historically, we've seen that, after peaks in sector concentration, equal-weighted sectors have tended to outperform. Information Technology is a great example of this.

And coming back to my earlier point about the geographic breakdown of revenues, this varies across sectors. For example, Information Technology had the lowest domestic percentage of sales, while Utilities had the highest. So, it's important to keep these considerations in mind for a sector level as well.

Ben Vörös:

Earlier, you mentioned that high beta actually overtook momentum, at least in the U.S., to be the top-performing factor. But, how has the relationship between high beta on the one hand, and defensive sectors and factors on the other, evolved over the year? And what that relationship means for market participants?

Anu Ganti:

Yes, and coming back to the point earlier about the tale of two markets, we certainly saw that at the factor level. In Q1, if you recall, we saw that low volatility outperformed, dividend strategies outperformed, some more defensive factors did well. Meanwhile, we saw the opposite in Q2, with the return of risk-on sentiment, where momentum outperformed, high beta outperformed, overtaking momentum. So, real notable reversal here. And we can also look at sectors as drivers of the factor performance. For example, high beta's greatest sector overweight is in Information Technology, and that was the leading sector.

Now, coming to your point about factors, momentum has been really interesting to watch globally. We saw that momentum has outperformed in the U.S. It has outperformed in Europe. But, not so much the case in developing markets and emerging markets, including China. So, the diverging trend of momentum in the U.S. and developed markets versus emerging markets and China will be something to closely watch as we close out the rest of the year.

Ben Vörös:

Thanks a lot for your insights, Anu. It was really interesting to hear about sector and factor dynamics in the first half of 2025.

To learn more about S&P DJI indices and the topics discussed today, please visit us at the links below.

spglobal.com/spdji/sectors

spglobal.com/spdji/factors

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