Dow Jones Indexes and AIG Financial Products Corp. today announced the launch of five new commodity indices and sub-indices.

The new market gauges are designed to give investors options for either more finely targeting their commodity exposures, or maintaining their exposures in major currencies other than the U.S. dollar.

The new indexes and sub-indexes are:

  • Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index Euro;
  • Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index Yen;
  • Dow Jones-AIG ExEnergy Sub-Index;
  • Dow Jones-AIG Agriculture Sub-Index; and
  • Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Spot Index.

Two of these new products are sub-indexes of the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index. Two of them are Euro and Yen denominated versions of the existing DJ-AIGCI, and the third is a spot price version of the DJ-AIGCI. Total return versions of each of the new indexes are available, apart from the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Spot Index.

The five new indexes and sub-indexes join the two indexes and seven sub-indexes already calculated daily by Dow Jones and AIG Financial Products Corp. (a wholly owned subsidiary of American International Group Inc.). The firms say that the index family is being expanded in response to the rapid growth of interest in commodities as an asset class.

The Euro and Yen indexes are being launched in response to increased demand in Europe and Japan for non-US dollar denominated commodity indexes. The ExEnergy Sub-Index will allow investors to track a diversified basket of commodity futures without exposure to energy futures prices. It currently consists of commodity futures in: aluminum, coffee, copper, corn, cotton, gold, lean hogs, live cattle, nickel, silver, soybeans, soybean oil, sugar, wheat, and zinc.

The Agriculture Sub-Index consists of seven commodity futures: coffee, corn, cotton, soybeans, soybean oil, sugar, and wheat.

The Commodity Spot Index measures the price movements of the commodities included in the DJ-AIGCI. This new spot index provides a general estimate of trends in commodity prices, ignoring the effects of rolling futures contracts and the costs of actually holding physical commodities.

“This expansion of the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index complex will enhance the ability of investors to track specific exposures within this significant asset class. We have responded quickly to investor demand for additional currencies and a wider range of segment subsets,” said Michael Petronella, president of Dow Jones Indexes/Ventures.

“The new additions to the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index collection of indexes and sub-indexes will be important tools in today’s expanding marketplace for commodities products. Interest in commodities is increasingly global in scope, with a focus on the diversification benefits of this asset class,” said Joseph Cassano, president and CEP of AIG Financial Product Corp. “Growing numbers of investors are taking a closer look at commodities indexes because returns have historically been negatively correlated with stock and bond returns and positively correlated with inflation measures.”

The flagship Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index, a diversified and highly liquid benchmark for the commodities markets, is composed of futures contracts on physical commodities and was introduced in 1998. Currently, there is an estimated US$15 billion invested in financial products that are tracking the DJ-AIGCI on a global basis.