BYMA and S&P Dow Jones Indices Complete Indices Transition


BYMA news

14/01/2019

Starting Monday, January 14, S&P DJI will be responsible for the production, development, licensing, distribution and management of the current and future Equity Indices. Indices will be rebranded.

Bolsas y Mercados Argentinos (BYMA) consolidates its partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI), the world’s leading provider of index-based data and research, with the takeover of current and future Equity indices comprising the  production, development, licensing, distribution and management.

Result of a successful transition process started in March 2018, it also consists of the rebranding of all current indices to S&PMERVAL or S&P/BYMA.

The indices included in the transition are S&PMerval, S&PMerval 25, S&PMerval Argentina, S&P/BYMA Burcap and S&P/BYMA Argentina General Index, which will be under the supervision of the Index Committee consisting of S&P DJI and BYMA members. The committee will be responsible for management, maintenance and monitoring of the general guidelines, policies and methodology.

Under the agreement, S&P DJI and BYMA have agreed to govern the Indices via the S&P/BYMA Index Committee. S&P DJI will be the Benchmark Administrator of the Indices under the IOSCO principles. S&P DJI will also be responsible for End of Day (“EOD”) production, licensing, and distribution of the indices (which includes components, weights, corporate actions, rebalancing information and historical data) under the brand S&P/BYMA.  S&P DJI will be responsible for the production of the intraday index values.

BYMA will continue to license and distribute real time data as well as the additional operational data, including Open/High/Low/Volume and Last Tick.

The agreement is also aimed to enhance visibility, governance and transparency of the existing indices, contributing at the same time, towards the expansion of the Argentine capital market. BYMA’s Director, Mr. Luis Álvarez, said: “With this initiative we intend to generate innovative and practical tools for local and global investors, allowing standards to be raised to an international best practices level, as part of our commitment to the development of the local market”. He also added: 

“Our relationship with S&P DJI started at the beginning of last year and we are aimed at strengthening such relationship by creating new indices.

How was the transition carried out?

During the last months, BYMA and S&PDJI worked together to implement the technological infrastructure for the communication and distribution of indices. It included a parallel stage in which S&PDJI calculated the indices on a daily basis, adjusting its systems and platforms.

Over that period of time, the methodology for the calculation of indices within the S&P/BYMA family was updated through a public consultation process among the members of the financial community, aligning the methodology with the international standards and providing access to global markets.

On January 14, 2019, S&P DJI assumes the role of manager of the current and future Equity indices.