S&P Dow Jones Indices, a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill and Nomura announced the launch of co-branded indices based on Nomura’s Bond Performance Index (BPI). Nomura’s BPI reflects pricing of Japanese bonds in the secondly market. The indexes are calculated based on returns of investments of a bond portfolio that meets Nomura’s selection criteria. The launch of the indexes that are aimed at becoming benchmarks for new investment products comes at a time that Japanese bonds are in center stage. The Bank of Japan is involved in an aggressive quantitative easing strategy where it has been buying Japanese Government Bonds (JGB) and has driven yields to all-times lows, while simultaneously weakening the yen. Similarly, yields of Japanese corporate debt have been falling due, with prices moving higher thanks to the stimulus. As such, additional products based on Nomura’s BPI are expected to provide currency traders more options when trading the yen.
S&P Dow Jones Indices and Nomura Securities to Create Co-Branded Indices Based on NOMURA-BPI Indices Tokyo, Japan, April 15, 2013: S&P Dow Jones Indices, the world’s largest provider of financial market indices, and Nomura, Asia’s global investment bank, today announced that they will create cobranded strategy indices based on the NOMURA Bond Performance Index (NOMURA-BPI). NOMURA-BPI indices measure the movement of Japanese bonds in the secondary market. These indices are calculated from the return on investment of a portfolio of all fixed income securities that meet certain criteria. Yoshiteru Yamagishi, Head of the Bond Indices Section in the Fixed Income Research Department at Nomura Securities, said: "We are pleased to launch these co-branded strategy indices with S&P Dow Jones Indices, a firm with a long history and extensive experience across a wide variety of financial market indices. The new indices offer the full benefits of NOMURA-BPI, a benchmark that tracks trends in Japan's bond markets, not only for Japanese, but also for global investors." Michele Leung, Associate Director of Fixed Income Indices at S&P Dow Jones Indices said: “We are excited to launch a family of co-branded strategy indices with Nomura Securities, bringing S&P Dow Jones Indices’ experience in producing fixed income indices to the Japanese bond market. These indices will be based upon the NOMURA-BPI indices, which are established benchmarks representing the Japanese bond market. The new indices will serve as both representative measures of the Japanese market and as the potential basis for investment products.” The launch date of the co-branded indices is still to be determined and has not yet been disclosed.
