On May 9, Deutsche Brse AG is introducing the RDAX, a new corporate bond index. According to Deutsche, the new bond index will be the first index tracking the performance of bonds issued by DAX companies. The RDAX index serves issuers as a basis for structured financial products and certificates.
“With the RDAX index, we offer issuers the possibility to combine the Lower risk of fixed-income securities with the established contents of the DAX index for the first time”, said Holger Wohlenberg, managing director for Market Data & Analytics at Deutsche Brse. “Retail investors will have easy and transparent access to the attractive corporate bond market.”
The RDAX is based on a transparent set of rules that comply with the internationally accepted EFFAS principles. Only euro-denominated corporate bonds issued by the DAX companies with an “investment grade” rating (BBB-or better) will be included in the index. Additionally, bonds must have an outstanding issuing volume of at least EUR500 million and a minimum time to maturity of one year. With the focus on corporate bonds of DAX companies plus the strict selection criteria, Deutsche Brse will ensure both the high quality of the index and liquidity of the index components. On May 9, the index will contain 89 corporate bonds issued by 20 companies of the DAX equity index.
The RDAX index will be calculated on the basis of iBoxx EUR consolidated prices, which are derived from real-time prices of ten investment banks with leading positions in bond trading. iBoxx EUR consolidated prices are product of International Index Company. The index constituents and the weighting of the individual bonds in the index will be adjusted on a monthly basis. Bonds will be weighted according to its market capitalization. The maximum weight of all bonds from a single issuer in the index is capped at 20%. The RDAX will be calculated by Market Data & Analytics at Deutsche Brse once a minute both as price and performance index and disseminated via the CEF real-time data feed. It will have a historical time series going back to January 1999.