Organization responsible for index calculation: Markit Group Limited ( www.markit.com)
Index group description Credit default swap index (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
A credit default swap index is a credit derivative used to hedge credit risk or to take a position on a basket of credit entities. Unlike a credit default swap, which is an over the counter credit derivative, a credit default swap index is completely standardised credit security and may therefore be more liquid and trade at a smaller bid-offer spread. This means that it can be cheaper to hedge a portfolio of credit default swaps or bonds with a CDS index than it would be to buy many CDS to achieve a similar effect. There are currently two main families of CDS indices: CDX and iTraxx. CDX indices contain North American and Emerging Market companies and are administered by CDS Index Company (CDSIndexCo) and marketed by Markit Group Limited, and iTraxx contain companies from the rest of the world and are managed by the International Index Company (IIC).
A new series of CDS indices is issued every six months by Markit and IIC. Running up to the announcement of each series a group of investment banks is polled to determine the credit entities that will form the constituents of the new issue. This process is intended to ensure that the index does not become "cluttered" with instruments that no longer exist, or which trade extremely illiquidly. On the day of issue a fixed coupon is decided for the whole index based on the credit spread of the entities in the index. Once this has been decided the index constituents and the fixed coupon are published, and the indices can be actively traded.
Included indexes CDX.EM CDX.EM.DIVERSIFIED iTraxx Crossover 5Y
