CIBC World Markets today introduced what it describes as the most extensive and complete income trust indices available in the Canadian marketplace.

The CIBC World Markets Benchmark Universe Yields/Returns Income Trust Index is the only family of complete income trust indices in Canada that provides extensive coverage of large/mid and small capitalization income trusts. The index currently includes 145 income trusts with a market capitalization of approximately $85 billion.

“The CIBC World Markets Income Trust Indices could serve as a performance standard for active managers, a proxy for asset allocation purposes, and a purchasable and replicable vehicle for passive indexing,” said Yin Luo, director of quantitative equity strategy and equity Iidexation at CIBC World Markets, in a release. “These new indices fill a gap in the current market by providing the first market-cap weighted income trust index family with both size and sector sub-indices.”

Features of the new indices include:

  • Two streams of size sub-indices: Large/Mid-Cap and Small-Cap
  • Four streams of sector sub-indices: Business, Energy, REIT and Utility
  • Both price index and total return index data available, and
  • Transparent rules-based index methodology, which follows standard equity index practice; and consistent indexing policies across all segments (size and sectors).

    “The Canadian income trust market continues to grow. Our data show that small-cap income trusts outperformed large- and mid-cap income trusts by annualized 3.9% over the past two and a half years from the inception of the Index in December 2001 to the end of the first half of 2004,” sayid Dawn Jia, senior analyst of quantitative equity strategy and equity indexation at CIBC World Markets. “We also see strong growth in the number of business trusts and strong outperformance of the Energy Trust sector during the same period.”

    Monthly summary data of the CIBC World Markets Income Trust indices and the Index Methodology will be available to the public on the CIBC World Markets’ website at www.cibcwm.com.

    More extensive and detailed information is available to investors and clients on a license fee basis.