Dow Jones Indexes Wins Best Islamic Index Provider Award


NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced it was named the "Best Islamic Index Provider" by Islamic Finance News. The selection was made by a record 1,502 Islamic finance professionals worldwide.

"This award acknowledges our achievements in and dedication to providing the most comprehensive, reliable and established family of Islamic indexes. The Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes were the first to measure the performance of stocks and bonds that comply with Islamic investment principles, and we remain committed to further developments in this area," said Michael A. Petronella, president of Dow Jones Indexes. "The award also recognizes Rushdi Siddiqui, our director of business development for the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes. Over the past nine years, he has truly pioneered our efforts to elevate the Dow Jones Islamic Market indexes into the widely accepted and successful benchmarks for Islamic portfolios that they are today."

Launched in 1999, the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes seeks to measure the global universe of investable equities that pass screens for Shari'ah compliance. The Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes combine Islamic investment principles with Dow Jones Indexes' objective, transparent and rules-based methodology.

The index family includes more than 70 regional, country and industry indexes derived from the flagship Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index. In 2006 the index family expanded to include the Dow Jones Islamic Market Sustainability Index, which combines Islamic investing principles with sustainability criteria; Dow Jones Citigroup Sukuk Index, the first index to track Islamic bonds; and Dow Jones Islamic Market BRIC Equal Weighted Index, which tracks Shari'ah-compliant stocks in Brazil, Russia, India and China. Islamic blue-chip indexes for Sri Lanka, Dubai and China and Hong Kong were launched last year.

A six-member supervisory board of Islamic scholars also counsels Dow Jones Indexes on the Shari'ah compliance of eligible stocks for the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes.

There are currently more than 60 licensees with more than USD $5 billion in assets benchmarked to the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes.

For more information on the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes, please visit www.djindexes.com. For more information on the awards, please visit the Islamic Finance News Web site at: www.islamicfinancenews.com.

Journalists may e-mail questions regarding this press release to PR-Indexes@dowjones.com or contact Dow Jones Indexes/STOXX press office:



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About Dow Jones Indexes

A full-service index provider, Dow Jones Indexes develops, maintains and licenses indexes for use as benchmarks and as the basis of investment products. Best known for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Indexes also is co-owner of the Dow Jones STOXX indexes, the world's leading pan-European indexes, and together with Wilshire Associates, provides the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Index family, which is anchored by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 and covers more than 12,000 securities in 59 markets. Beyond equity indexes, Dow Jones Indexes maintains a number of alternative indexes, including measures of the hedge fund and commodity markets. Dow Jones indexes are maintained according to clear, unbiased and systematic methodologies that are fully integrated within index families. www.djindexes.com

Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE:NWS) (NYSE:NWS-A) (ASX:NWS) (ASX:NWSLV) (www.newscorp.com). Dow Jones is a leading provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Newswires, Factiva, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates community-based information franchises. Dow Jones owns 50% of SmartMoney and 33% of Stoxx Ltd. and provides news content to radio stations in the U.S.

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