– Index will track investor perception of emerging market sovereign credit risk –
Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced that the Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA index will start trading on 20 January 2010.
The index, which forms part of the Markit iTraxx SovX family of sovereign credit default swap indices, will provide market participants with a standardised tool to hedge or gain exposure to the risk of 15 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. The 15 countries represented in the index have a combined total outstanding CDS notional of USD 530billion.
Stephan Flagel, managing director and Head of Indices at Markit, said: "The sovereign CDS asset class continues to gain in importance amid growing concern over countries’ debt levels. We expect this new tradable index will increase transparency and liquidity in the CEEMEA sovereign credit markets. The index will allow market participants to gain or hedge exposure to sovereign risk on a diversified basis and will be a useful tool to track investor perception of the credit risk of CEEMEA countries."
The new index will replace the existing theoretical index and start trading as Version 2 of Series 2 with more than 10 market makers.
Markit launched the Markit iTraxx SovX indices in July 2009 to meet investor demand for an independent, transparent and standardised tool to monitor the sovereign CDS market and gain access to the asset class on a regional and global basis. The first of these indices to be traded was the Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe index.
Markit’s indices are objective, transparent and rules-based. Daily index closing prices are published on www.markit.com.