Thomson Reuters has announced the introduction of 500 new equity indices aimed at the Middle East markets.

Indices from the equity markets of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE are among the new additions which are available on Thomson Reuters Eikon, the company’s recently launched next-generation desktop for financial market professionals.

New regional indices have also been created consisting of Middle East and North Africa (Mena) which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, UAE, Morocco and Egypt; Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and UAE; and Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) which includes the Mena countries and other Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey.

The 500 new indices allow clients to monitor market movements more deeply by country or region. Covering 51 countries and 24 regions, Thomson Reuters indices enable clients to monitor global markets, benchmark specific countries, regions and sectors and develop investment vehicles globally.

Each Thomson Reuters index is created using a proprietary liquidity filter that selects stocks based on price, as opposed to volume. By only including stocks that investors can access, the indices provide a more accurate depiction of the investing opportunities available, particularly in emerging markets, where many securities are not accessible to all investors.

The indices utilise the proprietary Thomson Reuters Business Classification (TRBC) system which provides globally consistent sector standards. TRBC is the industry’s broadest classification system covering 71,000 public and 230,000 private companies worldwide.

All 9,000 Thomson Reuters Indices are accessible via desktops as well as data feeds in products such as Thomson Reuters Eikon, Thomson Reuters 3000 Xtra, Thomson Reuters Datastream, StarMine and Thomson Reuters Portfolio Analytics.

“The addition of the 500 Middle East Indices will give investment managers, quantitative analysts and other financial professionals from across the globe, access to these important emerging markets and an opportunity to analyse market movements at a deeper level,” stated Basil Moftah, global head of Rapidly Developing Economies, Thomson Reuters.-TradeArabia News Service