The Nasdaq Stock Market announced the launch of a new indexing platform and two new indexes, the Nasdaq-100 Equal Weighted Index and the Nasdaq Healthcare Index.

The firm says that the new index platform expands its indexing capabilities, enabling it to calculate and disseminate an unlimited number of indexes on a real-time basis. In addition to both total return and price return indexes, Nasdaq can now calculate and disseminate indexes that include securities listed on Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange.

“We are committed to providing relevant strategy indexes and services to those ranging from the smallest
investor, to the most sophisticated trader to the largest mutual fund manager,” said John Jacobs, executive vp of Nasdaq Financial Products, in a release.

The Nasdaq-100 Equal Weighted Index is the equal weighted version of the Nasdaq-100 Index, which includes 100 of the largest non-financial securities listed on Nasdaq based on market capitalization. It enables investors to invest in equal measure in the performance of Nasdaq-100 securities. The index contains the same securities as the Nasdaq-100 Index but each of the securities is initially set at a weight of 1.00% of the index and is rebalanced quarterly.

The new Nasdaq Health Care Index is a market value weighted index that contains Nasdaq listed companies classified, according to the FTSE Global Classification System, as “health”, “pharmaceutical” or “biotechnology.” They include health maintenance organizations, hospital management and long-term care, medical equipment and supplies, other health care, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical companies.

“These new indexes provide market participants with new opportunities to own shares in industry-leading companies and equips them with additional investment options,” Jacobs added.