STOXX Ltd., the European index provider, celebrates the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Dow Jones STOXX Indexes, the first pan-European indexes under STOXX brand being launched on 26 February 1998.
The Dow Jones STOXX Indexes were introduced in advance of the European Monetary Union and the introduction of the euro to provide market participants with transparent and strictly rules-based regional indexes for Europe. The Dow Jones EURO STOXX 50 was the first index to measure the performance of the Euro zone. Today, STOXX Ltd. is a joint venture of Deutsche Boerse AG, Dow Jones & Company and Swiss Financial Markets Services AG.
“Our visionary innovation of regional European indexes combined with the right business model is in fact a success story of its own and set new standards within the world of indexing and European integration. Dow Jones STOXX Indexes have always been and still are important catalyzers to diversify index-linked investing as well as cross boarder trading. By including the Dow Jones STOXX indexes into the Dow Jones World index family we immediately laid the foundation stone for further, global expansion. Today, the Dow Jones STOXX Index family includes the Dow Jones STOXX Global 1800 Indexes,” says Werner Brki, chairman of the supervisory board, STOXX Ltd.
The Dow Jones STOXX indexes emerged as the standard underlying for European index-based investment products such as exchange traded funds (ETFs), futures & options, structured products as well as passively managed investment funds.
Since April 2000, the Dow Jones EURO STOXX 50 Index and the Dow Jones STOXX 50 Index serve as the underlying for the first equity ETFs that were ever launched in Europe. Currently, there are 124 ETFs – including the top three ETFs in Europe by assets under management – based on Dow Jones STOXX Indexes.
Today the indexes are available to market participants worldwide. Options on the Dow Jones EURO STOXX 50 Index show the highest open interest across Europe and the second highest worldwide.