STOXX Ltd. launches pan-European select dividend indexes

The Dow Jones STOXX Select Dividend 30 Index—covering Europe—and the Dow Jones EURO STOXX Select Dividend 30 Index—covering the Eurozone—track the 30 highest dividend-paying stocks relative to their respective home markets.

These new indexes, which have already been licensed to Indexchange to be used as the underlying for exchange-traded funds, are based on the concept of the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index, and are integrated into the global Dow Jones Select Dividend index family.

“The Dow Jones STOXX Select Dividend 30 index and the Dow Jones EURO STOXX Select Dividend 30 index combine the main factors of the high-dividend investment concept: net dividend yield, based on a diversified pan-European universe and the leading domestic dividend-paying companies,” said Lars Hamich, managing director, STOXX Ltd. “Not only are the companies selected on the basis of dividend criteria, the weighting of the companies in the index is purely based on dividends. These factors make this index family unique and innovative. The size of a company doesn’t determine its importance within the index—only the dividend yield does.”

The index universe is defined as all dividend-paying companies in the Dow Jones STOXX 600 for the Dow Jones STOXX Select Dividend 30 index and in the Dow Jones Euro STOXX for the Dow Jones EURO STOXX Select Dividend 30 index, respectively. In addition, these companies need to have a five-year, non-negative, dividend-per-share growth rate, and a dividend-to-earnings-per-share ratio that is less than or equal to 60%.

The selection process of these new select dividend indexes is rule-based and is targeted to identify the leading domestic dividend paying companies.

Index components are weighted by their indicated annual net dividend yield. The largest dividend yielding companies have the highest weight in the index.
Individual component weightings are capped at 15%.

The Dow Jones STOXX Select Dividend 30 and the Dow Jones EURO STOXX Select Dividend 30 indexes are reviewed annually in December. Index data for both indexes is distributed on a real-time basis through major market-data vendors. Historical data is available back to Dec. 31, 1998, with a base value of 1000.