Markit iTraxx SovX Series 4 RED Codes and Coupons

28 April 2010 – The Markit iTraxx SovX Asia Pacific index will start trading on 4 May 2010. 

The Effective Date / Roll Date for the Markit iTraxx SovX Asia Pacific index will be 22 March 2010. The index will trade with a 5 year maturity and the maturity date for the Series 3 index will be 20 June 2015. Following is the RED Code for the index:

The Markit iTraxx SovX documentation is available here.

9 April 2010 - Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced plans to launch the Markit iTraxx SovX Asia Pacific index.  The index will track investor perceptions of the credit risk of a range of countries in the Asia Pacific region and will start trading in early May 2010. 

The index, which forms part of the Markit iTraxx SovX family of credit default swap (CDS) indices, will be a useful barometer of the sovereign CDS markets in the Asia Pacific region.  It will also provide market participants with a standardised tool to hedge their exposure to the risk of the ten countries with the most liquid sovereign CDS in the region. 

The initial series of the Markit iTraxx SovX Asia Pacific index will include the following constituents:

The Markit iTraxx SovX Asia Pacific index will start trading as Version 1 of Series 3 for consistency with other Markit iTraxx SovX indices.  More than ten market makers, including international and local financial institutions, are expected to provide liquidity for this index. 

Markit will continue to apply its objective, rules-based approach to index construction and publish index rules and daily closing prices on www.markit.com.

Markit iTraxx SovX Series 3 RED Codes and Coupons

12 January 2009 – The Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA market makers voted to roll the traded version of the Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA index as Series 3 Version 1 instead of Series 2 Version 2 as was originally planned due to the forthcoming index roll in March 2010.

The Effective Date / Roll Date for the Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA Series 3 Version 1 indices will be 20 January 2010 and the maturity dates for the 5Y and 10Y indices will be 20 June 2015 and 20 June 2020 respectively.

The next roll for the Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA index will be in September 2010.

The Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA Series 3 Version 1 rulebook and membership list are available below:

07 January 2010 – 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.

The Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA Series 2 Version 2 rulebook and membership list are available below:

14 December 2009 - Markit is working in consultation with market participants to develop a tradable version of the Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA, a sovereign credit default swap theoretical index which tracks the credit risk of 15 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.  We expect to launch the index in early 2010.

22 September 2009 - Markit today announced that the Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe index would start trading on 28 September 2009.  This is the first of the Markit iTraxx SovX indices to be tradable.

The Markit iTraxx SovX family of indices has been designed to meet investor demand for a transparent and standardised tool to monitor the sovereign credit default swap (CDS) market and gain access to the asset class on both a regional and global basis.  The creation of this investment and hedging tool is expected to encourage investor demand for sovereign credit.

Market-makers in the Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe index include the following: Bank of America/ Merrill Lynch; Barcap; BNP; Citi; JP Morgan; Morgan Stanley and Nomura. Historically, the trading of sovereign CDS has been limited to emerging markets, reflecting the credit risk associated with the government debt of these countries.  Over the past months, however, an actively traded CDS market in industrialised sovereigns has emerged as a result of the financial crisis and growing investor concerns relating to the solvency of developed economies.

Stephan Flagel, Managing Director and Head of Indices at Markit, said: “The Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe will provide investors with an efficient, standardised trading tool to gain or hedge exposure to this asset class on a diversified basis.”

The Markit iTraxx SovX indices were launched in July 2009 and are calculated daily on a theoretical basis.  Markit’s indices are objective, transparent and rules-based.  Daily closing prices are published on http://www.markit.com/markit.jsp?jsppage=indices.jsp

The Markit iTraxx SovX Series 2 rulebook and membership lists are available below:

13 July 2009 - Markit today launched a family of Sovereign CDS indices covering countries across the globe. The Markit iTraxx SovX family of indices will initially comprise the following:

• Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe – tracking the credit risk of 15 countries in Western Europe.
• Markit iTraxx SovX G7 – tracking the credit risk of the most industrialised countries in the world.
• Markit iTraxx SovX Global Liquid IG – tracking the credit risk of countries in Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Middle East & Africa, North America and Western Europe.
• Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA – tracking the credit risk of 15 countries in the CEEMEA region.

Historically, the trading of sovereign CDS was limited to emerging markets, reflecting the credit risk associated with the government debt of these countries.  However, an actively traded CDS market in industrialised sovereigns has now emerged as a result of the financial crisis and growing investor concerns relating to the solvency of developed economies.

The Markit iTraxx SovX family of indices has been designed to meet investor demand for a transparent and standardised tool to monitor the sovereign CDS market and gain access to the asset class on both a regional and global basis.  The creation of this alternative investment tool is expected to bring more investor demand for sovereign credit.

Niall Cameron, Executive Vice President of Commodities, Indices, Equities and Risk Management at Markit, said: “The financial crisis and the effects of governments’ financial guarantee schemes on the perceived credit quality of their debt have put sovereign CDS under the spotlight.  We have therefore designed the Markit iTraxx SovX indices to provide investors with greater insight into the credit risk of a group of countries and an ability to gain exposure to the sovereign CDS asset class.”

The Markit iTraxx SovX family of indices will initially comprise the following:

• Markit iTraxx SovX G7 – tracking the credit risk of the most industrialised countries in the world.
• Markit iTraxx SovX Global Liquid IG – tracking the credit risk of countries in Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Middle East & Africa, North America and Western Europe.
• Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe – tracking the credit risk of 15 countries in Western Europe.
• Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA – tracking the credit risk of 15 countries in the CEEMEA region.

The Markit iTraxx SovX indices are scheduled to launch in July 2009 and will be calculated daily on a theoretical basis.  The Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe index will be tradable as from September 2009.  The other indices are expected to follow suit.

Markit will apply its objective, rules-based approach to index construction and provide important transparency by publishing daily closing prices on www.markit.com.