International Securities Exchange Launches New Water Index
The International Securities Exchange recently announced the launch of the ISE-B&S Water Index, a new sector index option and benchmark for this emerging industry. The index was developed with Boenning & Scattergood (B&S), one of the oldest independently operated securities firms headquartered in the Mid-Atlantic region.
The ISE-B&S Water Index was developed in response to growing interest in water as a scarce resource and comprises companies in the water infrastructure, filtration, distribution, purification and treatment industries. The index currently contains 20 stocks that trade in the U.S. market, including such notable domestic industry participants as Aqua America Inc. and Watts Water Technologies Inc., as well as international companies that trade as depositary receipts, such as Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de Sao Paulo. The index is the basis for cash-settled index options, which listed and began trading Jan. 5 on ISE under the symbol HHO.
"ISE is pleased to announce the new ISE-B&S Water Index, which capitalizes on the growing interest in water as a precious commodity," said Bruce D. Goldberg, ISE's chief marketing officer. "We have been at the forefront of developing and launching innovative indices to anticipate market demand. This continues our record of innovation in the options market and adds to ISE's portfolio of unique and proprietary sector index options, which offer investors sophisticated trading strategies to manage their equity portfolios."
Harold Scattergood, chairman of Boenning & Scattergood, said, "We are very pleased to join with the International Securities Exchange in the launch of this exciting new product. Boenning & Scattergood has a focused research effort and professional staff dedicated to identifying promising investment opportunities in the water industry and businesses that are improving the supply and quality of water. This new product is certain to provide investors with the ability to participate in this exciting new industry, as well as serve as an excellent tool to control risk."
ISE's index methodologies for the sector indexes are rules-based, making the rules for calculating and maintaining the indexes freely available to everyone, and thus, easily used to test the historic performance of the indexes.
Additional information about these indexes, including methodology guides, component lists and weightings, performance metrics and historical data is available on ISE's website, www.iseoptions.com, on the Products Traded / Index Options page.
This article originally appeared in the 01/01/2006 issue of Environmental Protection.