NEW YORK, Dec. 7, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global-index provider, and Wilshire Associates Incorporated, the world's leading investment consulting, investment management and investment technology firm, today announced the early 2005 rollout of the Dow Jones Wilshire U.S. Style index benchmarks. The new index series will cover five investment "styles" -- large-capitalization growth, large-cap value, small-cap growth, small-cap value and micro-caps -- reflecting the make-up of the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index.
"The new Dow Jones Wilshire Style Indexes will deliver style purity through coverage of the entire U.S. equity market," said John A. Prestbo, Editor of Dow Jones Indexes. "With its transparent methodology, which, among other things, minimizes component turnover in the indexes, these new benchmarks will spotlight growth and value trends in the market. Where growth and value factors appear to be less important than size, the micro-cap segment rounds out the full-market coverage," he noted.
"With the introduction of the new Dow Jones Wilshire Style Indexes, financial professionals will now have comprehensive benchmarks for not only the broad U.S. market but also for the U.S. market segments that matter to them most -- growth and value," said Dennis Tito, founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Wilshire Associates. "The inclusion of micro-caps as a fifth style allows for the entire economic space to be represented as a style universe with no artificial cut-offs of the market. The purity of the indexes makes them well suited as benchmarks and as the basis for investment products."
The style indexes are part of the Dow Jones Wilshire index family that now includes a comprehensive set of U.S. indexes (broad-market, sector, size and style) and is planned to include a global composite. The unique advantage of Dow Jones Wilshire indexes is their breadth, but the benchmark appropriate family also provides consistent global coverage with an objective and transparent set of measures.
The Dow Jones Wilshire style indexes are broad enough to include all stocks for attribution analysis with a methodology that is among the most sophisticated being used by index providers. Six factors are used for style classification -- some index providers use as few as one or two factors -- and Dow Jones Wilshire classifies each stock as wholly either growth or value to eliminate overlap that can allow for undesirable "style drift" in stock portfolios.
The six equally weighted factors that are used to classify growth and value are:
-- Two backward looking: five-year average earnings growth and sales
growth
-- Two current: Price/Book value ratio and dividend yield
-- Two forward looking: forecasts of Price/Earnings ratios and
long-term earnings growth
The Dow Jones Wilshire Indexes are available on market data vendor platforms, many in real-time format, and on the Dow Jones Indexes (www.djindexes.com) and Wilshire Associates (www.wilshire.com) Web sites. Dow Jones Indexes also distribute data related to the Dow Jones Wilshire Indexes to data vendors and other users.
For further information, please email to pr-indexes@dowjones.com or contact a member of the Dow Jones Indexes public relations group:
Sybille A. Reitz, +1-212-597-5735, Karishma Thakkar, +1-212-597-5718
To contact Wilshire Associates public relations, please email kim.shepherd@wilshire.com or call: Chicago: Kim Shepherd, +1-847-332-2987
About Dow Jones Indexes
Dow Jones Indexes is a premier global provider of investable indexes, including the Dow Jones Averages, the Dow Jones Global Titans 50, the Dow Jones Asian Titans 50, the Dow Jones Sector Titans, the Dow Jones Country Titans Indexes and is co-owner of the Pan-European Dow Jones STOXX Indexes. Dow Jones Indexes is part of Dow Jones & Company, which publishes the world's most vital business and financial news and information.
In addition to Dow Jones Indexes, Dow Jones & Company (NYSE:DJ) (dowjones.com) publishes The Wall Street Journal and its international and online editions, Barron's and the Far Eastern Economic Review, Dow Jones Newswires and the Ottaway group of community newspapers. Dow Jones is co-owner with Reuters Group of Factiva, with Hearst of SmartMoney and with NBC Universal of the CNBC television operations in Asia and Europe. Dow Jones also provides news content to CNBC and radio stations in the U.S.
About Wilshire Associates
Wilshire Associates is a leading global investment technology, investment management and investment consulting firm with four business units including Wilshire Analytics, Wilshire Consulting, Wilshire Funds Management and Wilshire Private Markets.
The firm was founded in 1972 revolutionizing the industry by pioneering the application of investment analytics and research for the institutional marketplace. Wilshire also is credited with helping to develop the field of quantitative investment analysis that uses mathematical tools to analyze market risks. All other business units evolved from Wilshire's strong analytics foundation. Wilshire developed the index now known as the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index, the first asset/liability models for pension funds, the first U.S. equity style metrics work and many other "firsts" as the firm grew to more than 300 employees serving the investment needs of institutional and high net worth clients around the world.
Based in Santa Monica, CA, Wilshire provides services to clients in more than 20 countries representing in excess of 600 organizations with assets totaling more than $12.5 trillion. With eight offices on four continents, Wilshire Associates and its affiliates are dedicated to providing clients with the highest quality counsel, products and services. For more information go to www.wilshire.com.
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