Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, has launched the Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 Index, designed to underlie financial products such as exchange-traded funds, structured products and derivatives.
 
The index measures the performance of the top 25 stocks in the Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Index, comprising Malaysia-domiciled companies that pass rules-based screens for Shari’ah compliance.

“Since the late 1990s, Dow Jones Indexes has provided the most sophisticated, consistent and representative index series worldwide to capture the performance of companies that comply with Islamic investment principles. The Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 Index enables a growing Islamic banking and finance industry to participate in the performance of the top 25 Shari’ah-compliant companies in one of the most rapidly emerging and sought after financial markets in Asia,” said Michael A. Petronella, president of Dow Jones Indexes.

The Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 Index is weighted by free float-adjusted market capitalisation and component weights are capped at 20 per cent. As of January 18, 2008 the top five components by free float-adjusted market capitalisation are Sime Darby, IOI Corporation, DiGi.com, Kuala Lumpur Kepong and Gamuda.

The Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 Index is calculated in US Dollar and Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) and reviewed quarterly in March, June, September and December.

As of December 31, 2007, the Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 Index (USD) has gained 176 per cent from its base date, December 31, 2003 in a backtest, Petronella added.-TradeArabia News Service