(November 21 – 12:50 ET) – Standard & Poor’s Canadian Index Operations says it is going to make the capped version of the TSE 300 composite index widely available at year end.

S&P says that effective after the close of business on December 29, the TSE 300 Capped Index will be made available both on a day-end and intra-day basis through recognized data vendors and media outlets.

The TSE 300 Capped Index was launched on April 25, in response to calls for a recognized benchmark limiting the exposure of any one company to less than 10%.

The capped index became necessary after Nortel Networks Corp. grew to account for about 30% of the index that is supposed to represent the broadest measure of the Canadian market.

S&P says that back in April many fund managers found the TSE 300 Composite Index to be an inappropriate benchmark due to several companies having an index weighting in excess of 10%.

“The capped index was originally launched as a custom product, whereby clients could subscribe to receive the information on a daily basis,” said Glenn Doody, director S&P’s Index Services (Canada). “However, due to the overwhelming success of the product in the past eight months, we feel that it is time to move forward, and explore all potential avenues of growth for this index”.

Yesterday, the S&P launched the S&P/TSE 60 Capped Index, offering a capped benchmark for its index that will be replacing the TSE 35 at the end of the year.
-IE Staff