Qontigo And Eurex Respond To New Industry Classification

Deutsche Börse’s index provider Qontigo and its derivatives exchange Eurex are adapting their offering to the upcoming new classification of industrial sectors. To reflect the new Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB) framework, they have announced an expansion of their sector indices and derivatives offering coming into force on September 21.

As a result of the new classification, Qontigo has identified four Supersectors, for which new EURO STOXX and STOXX Europe 600 indices will be launched: Consumer Products & Services, Energy, Food, Beverage & Tobacco, and Personal Care, Drug & Grocery Stores.

Eurex is supplementing its offering with the corresponding futures and options. To facilitate the transition to the new classification, Qontigo will also retain the old indices linked to former Supersectors Oil & Gas, Personal & Household Goods and Food & Beverage as legacy indices. The corresponding derivatives on these legacy indices remain listed.

Upcoming soon: the new ICB Industry Classification Benchmark. Therefore, watch out for @Qontigofinance's new #STOXX sector indexes and our new #Eurex sector index derivatives which we are going to introduce on 21 Sept. https://t.co/WCfUliNiPi pic.twitter.com/W6ZCJX19K5

— Eurex (@EurexGroup) September 10, 2020

The ICB is a globally recognized standard for categorizing companies and securities. Each stock in the investable universe is uniquely classified based on the company’s primary revenue source. This categorization provides an accurate classification of companies in their respective business environments. There are four levels of classification: Industries, Supersectors, Sectors and Subsectors. The number of categories will be enhanced, and some categories will be renamed. Changes in the STOXX index landscape include:

• ICB Supersector Oil and Gas will evolve into Supersector Energy. Qontigo will retain the STOXX Europe 600 and EURO STOXX Oil & Gas Supersector indices as legacy indices and launch new Energy Supersector indices.
• ICB Supersector Food & Beverages will evolve into Supersector Food, Beverages & Tobacco. Qontigo will retain the STOXX Europe 600 and EURO STOXX Food & Beverages Supersector indices as legacy indices and launch new Food, Beverages & Tobacco Supersector indices.
• ICB Supersector Personal & Household Goods will evolve into Supersector Consumer Products & Services. Qontigo will retain the STOXX Europe 600 and EURO STOXX Personal & Household Goods Supersector indices as a legacy index and launch new Consumer Products & Services Supersector indices.
• ICB is introducing the new Supersector Personal Care, Drug and Grocery Stores; Qontigo will launch the corresponding Supersector indices.
• Other indices that rely on the ICB classification for the purpose of selecting or weighting their constituents will be adapted to the new ICB framework. Among these, EURO STOXX 50 will be based on 20 Supersectors instead of the current 19.

“Industries keep evolving, and a classification scheme needs to adapt to reflect those changes. Going forward, STOXX indices will be aligned with the new ICB framework. On top of that we will keep several old sector indices as legacy indices to allow clients the time to adapt to the new framework,” said Stephan Flaegel, Global Head of Indices & Benchmarks at Qontigo.

Randolf Roth, Member of the Eurex Executive Board: “Sector derivatives are continuously thriving and growing. It is therefore important that Eurex’s sector offering allows market participants to gain exposure and manage risk across all sectors, including those newly introduced.”

Updates and further details can be found in the methodology section of stoxx.com

Source: Eurex