Dow Jones is increasing coverage of emerging stock markets in the Dow Jones World Index to 95% of market capitalization from 80%.

The countries that Dow Jones Indexes designates as developing or emerging markets include Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela.

The increased coverage will boost the number of components in the 11 emerging markets to 824 from 608. These components contain 95% of free float market capitalization in its emerging markets database. The total number of stocks in the Dow Jones World Index will increase to 5,046 from 4,801. Except for
the difference in emerging-market coverage, Dow Jones Indexes had applied the same methodology to developing markets as it does to developed ones.

“This major step will provide individual and institutional investors with a broader and thus more effective tool to measure the markets on a global scale,” says Michael Petronella, managing director of Dow Jones Indexes. “As the developed markets in our Dow Jones World Index cover 95% of the underlying market capitalization already, our index family now becomes consistent across all markets.”

These changes became effective with the beginning of trading on June 18, after the conclusion of a regular quarterly review of the Dow Jones World Index.