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Indexfam Explained and Amplified

Updated 11/08/18

The name of a stock index does not always carry enough information understand what the index actually is or it's usefulness within FastTrack. This page discusses some of the stock market index members of the FastTrack IndexFam family. This discussion does not cover indexes that we judge easy to understand.

Bank of American Indexes
CBOE Indexes
CRB indexes
- Commodity Research Bureau
Exchange Traded Funds Indexes - Indexes that underlay all exchange traded funds.
Federal Reserve Indexes - Indexes managed by the Federal Open Market Committee
LIBOR Indexes
Sector Indexes - Indexes that track stocks in a particular industry sector
 

CNPI- The Consumer Price Index.

Here is an example of the use of this set of data.

Investors FastTrack began operation on January 1, 1990 with a "Funds Only" database of 178 funds for $280/year. Now in 2012, we offer over 10,0000 funds. The Consumer Price index from 1/1/90 to 1/1/2012 has risen 79.412% (measure using FT4Web CNPI- ticker)

$280.00 x 1.79412= $521.54

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items [CPIAUCSL], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL

Second Example

What is the true growth of an investment?

  1. Place CNPI- in green.

  2. Place a fund in red.

  3. Display the relative strength chart.

  4. Select the yellow Colorbar cell.

  5. Move the mouse to the chart and Hit the ! key.

What you see in the T Chart's yellow line is the R Chart's yellow line. This line is the same as the Red line less the CNPI- . Thus, based on 1988 dollars, 6.15% is the real annual return of the S&P 500 (VFINX)  from 12/30/88 to 1/4/2012.

Third Example

This example is inspired by FastTrackers calls to Tech support regarding "funny numbers".

  • CNPI- in green shows that prices have gone up 87.74%.
  • However, money has lost only 46.74% of it's value (yellow line).

The yellow line is generated by plotting the CNPI- vs a 0% flat line in the Relative Strength Chart (the R Chart). The R Chart's yellow line can be captured using the ! key. and then placed in the Total Return Chart (T Chart) where it is easily measurable. The green and yellow lines in the T Chart are exactly inverse of each other.

Points to Ponder

  • CNPI- green BP= value will eventually go over 100%. However the yellow inverse BP= cannot go below -100% . . . you can't lose more than 100%
  • Your chart will not look anything like the one shown unless you select the option to plot the chart on a log scale.
  1. CRBI-

The New York Board of Trade, exclusive futures and options exchange for the Reuters CRB Index, will introduce new contracts on a revised and renamed version of this leading benchmark of the commodity futures market beginning July 11, 2005.

The renamed Index – the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index – is the collaborative effort of Reuters, the global information company, and Jefferies Financial Products, LLC, a leading provider of commodity-related products for institutional investors and a subsidiary of Jefferies Group, Inc. On June 20, 2005 , the Index will officially become the “RJ/CRB”, undergoing the most significant revision in its nearly fifty year history with changes in weighting, methodology and commodity representation.

Developed in 1957, the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index is one of the most often cited indicators of overall commodity prices. Originally, the CRB Index was weighted heavily towards agricultural commodities. Since its inception, it has been revised nine times to be more representative of a broader range of commodity prices, particularly energy. This tenth change brings the Reuters/Jefferies CRB in line with the evolution of a rapidly expanding commodity futures market. The RJ/CRB Index continues to offer investors a broad and reliable benchmark for the performance of the commodity sector; it now represents nineteen commodity futures markets, including all five of the NYBOT primary agricultural products (cocoa, coffee, cotton, FCOJ and sugar).

“The transition to the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index comes at a significant time for the futures industry,” stated NYBOT President and CEO C. Harry Falk. “Many portfolio managers and individual investors are turning to commodities as an important alternative asset class that may provide critical portfolio diversification, and the RJ/CRB market at the New York Board of Trade offers serious investors access to the commodities market though a single financial instrument with less volatility than generally found in many individual commodities.”

New York ’s original futures exchange began trading the CRB in its index marketplace in 1986; the name of the index changed to the Reuters CRB Index in 2001. Now again renamed as the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index, these contracts offer investors direct access to an asset class that may diversify their holdings, improve portfolio returns, reduce overall portfolio risk and hedge against inflation.

Trading in the RJ/CRB will commence on July 11, with the first listed month of September 2005. Effective with this introduction, the RJ/CRB futures will list four months on a quarterly cycle (March, June, September and December). The RJ/CRB contract will also feature a multiplier of $200 times the Index (down from $500 in the old CRB). The new contract size will provide easier access to the Index market. Real time data for the RJ/CRB will be generally available beginning June 20 th under the current CRB trading symbols.

The previous version of the Reuters CRB will be renamed the “Continuous Commodity Index” and will be made available for trading under the symbol “CI” after the close of business on June 17th. All outstanding open positions in the current Index will be rolled into the new product and trade under the symbol “CR”. The Exchange will continue to list new months for the CCI.

  • CRB-1 Reuters CRB Total Return Index

For FastTrackers the CRBI- and CRB-1 offer the opptunity for generating simple relative strength signals. Using CRBI- in red and CRB-1 in green, AccuTrack 25/100 creates signals which have a successful timing record. This is by no means optimal. However, the strategy suggests potential for using these signals to trade short/long commodity funds to diversity a portfolio.

http://www.crbtrader.com/crbindex/total_return.asp

"The Reuters-CRB-Tot Return Index's  (CRB-1) return and volatility characteristics allow it to serve as an benchmark for institutions looking to take advantage of this asset class.

One of the key features of the CRB-1 is its method of calculation. Because the CRB-1 is geometrically averaged, the listed CRB-1 future contracts almost always trade at a discount to their fair value. This is due to the fact that arbitrageurs are able to manage a short CRB-1 futures position against an equal weighted long component position which is arithmetically weighted. As time passes and depending upon the volatility of the component commodities, the arbitrageurs long component position will outperform the short CRB-1 position. This mathematical certainty allows the arbitrageurs to sell CRB-1 futures contracts at a slight discount to their daily calculated value. Informed investors may regularly obtain this price anomaly and therefore increase their overall return by the level of the discount captured. A large institutional investor may find this aspect of using the CRB-1 particularly attractive. Along with the size of a CRB-1 futures contract ($100,000 per contract with the index at 200.00), using CRB-1 futures contracts may seem the most useful of the current commodity benchmarks currently available.

Many investors looking to commodities as a hedge against other held assets are not so much concerned with commodity prices rising but with commodities prices rising quickly. Large upward spikes in commodity prices may send investors scrambling to insulate their portfolio against the possible inflationary ramifications associated with such a move. The comparatively low volatility of the CRB-1 make using CRB-1 options a reasonably priced insurance policy. "

For every exchange traded fund there is an index. These are members of the FastTrack ETFIndex family.  Trades in the ETFs during the trading day occur above and below the most recent index number typically taking place with 0.1% -.25% of the index. Strategy: The index-ETF spread is always most narrow at the close of the market which, not coincidentally, is the only time at which the exchanges are required report trading spread. End of Day trades are usually batched together and executed 15-minutes after the close of the US markets. When buys and sells are in balance the average closing trade is very, very close to the index close.

Major organizations like Dow Jones and Barclay's Bank have longstanding indexes and create new indexes regularly in hopes of attracting license fees from organizations who wish to create new ETFs based on the indexes. Often, but not always, when a new ETF begins to trade, the index organization will publish a new version of the index with a different ticker symbol to underlay the ETF. Often a longstanding index has been (and will continue to be) be computed or managed in way that is difficult for a funds manager to follow. The new equivalent ETF index, using a different set of construction rules,  is intended to be easier to manage.

This new index ticker and associated data will coexist with the old index ticker symbol both often having the same name and essentially the same performance. FastTrack often carries both of these indexes and the longstanding index will have much more data and be more widely recognized.

Federal Reserve

These indexes and many more will be added to the IndexFam by 11/5/2018
See the online discussion of each of these indexes

The majority of gold by weight is sold in the London markets at the morning and afternoon gold fix price - one price for all trades. These are the prices we quote in GD-AM and GD-PM.

This means that NY prices can differ (as they do in the 13 cities worldwide that trade gold). In the US Handy Harmon Index (Bridgeport CT) , is commonly used. The HH price adjusts to the London Afternoon gold fix and then can drift from that point later in the NY trading day.

One issue created by our use of the London pricing is that London trading is closed for different holidays.  Where we do not get a London price for a US market day, then FastTrack's GD-PM will be adjusted to match the HH price quoted in the Wall Street Journal.  Commonly, the quoted HH Price is the same as the London PM fix, but not always.

XAU-I is an index of gold stocks. This index is often used as a basis for trading of derivatives (options and futures). Gold stocks are more volatile than the price of gold, and generally move in the same direction as the underlying price of gold. A small increase in gold price can  result in the doubling of profits in the gold stocks.

LIBOR licensed from Intercontinental Exchange is a benchmark rate  the world's leading banks use to charge each other and to base interest rates for consumers..

LIBOR Indexes

BL12-
EL12-
ZL12-
UL12-
BL1-
EL1-
ZL1-
UL1-
BL1W-
EL1W-
UL1W-
BL2-
EL2-
ZL2-
UL2-
BL3-
EL3-
ZL3-
UL3-
BL6-
EL6-
ZL6-
UL6-
 

 


12-M LIBOR-British Pound
12-M LIBOR-Euro
12-M LIBOR-Swiss Franc
12-M LIBOR-US Dollar
1-M LIBOR-British Pound
1-M LIBOR-Euro
1-M LIBOR-Swiss Franc
1-M LIBOR-US Dollar
1-W LIBOR-British Pound
1-W LIBOR-Euro
1-W LIBOR-US Dollar
2-M LIBOR-British Pound
2-M LIBOR-Euro
2-M LIBOR-Swiss Franc
2-M LIBOR-US Dollar
3-M LIBOR-British Pound
3-M LIBOR-Euro
3-M LIBOR-Swiss Franc
3-M LIBOR-US Dollar
6-M LIBOR-British Pound
6-M LIBOR-Euro
6-M LIBOR-Swiss Franc
6-M LIBOR-US Dollar
 

See details at
 https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/libor.aspand inflation

Bank of America Bond indexes
Licensed from Intercontinental Exchange

E3CE-
E3C6-
E3C-
E3CT-
M9TR-
M5TR-
MFTR-
M6TR-
M7TR-
M1TR-
M2TR-
M3TR-
M4TR-
MMTR-
M9EY-
M9OA-
M96Y-
M5EY-
M5OA-
M56Y-
MFEY-
MFOA-
MF6Y-
M6EY-
M6OA-
M66Y-
M7EY-
M7OA-
M76Y-
M8EY-
M8OA-
M86Y-
M8TR-
M1EY-
M1OA-
M16Y-
M2EY-
M2OA-
M26Y-
M3EY-
M3OA-
M36Y-
M4EY-
M4OA-
M46Y-
MMEY-
MMOA-
MM6Y-
 
BofAML AAA-A Emerging Markets Corporate
BofAML AAA-A Emerging Markets Corporate
BofAML AAA-A Emerging Markets Corporate
BofAML AAA-A Emerging Markets Corporate
BofAML US Corp 10-15yr Total Return Inde
BofAML US Corp 1-3yr Total Return Index
BofAML US Corp 15yr Total Return Index V
BofAML US Corp 3-5yr Total Return Index
BofAML US Corp 5-7yr Total Return Index
BofAML US Corp A Total Return Index Valu
BofAML US Corp AA Total Return Index Val
BofAML US Corp AAA Total Return Index Va
BofAML US Corp BBB Total Return Index Va
BofAML US Corp Master Total Return Index
BofAML US Corporate 10-15 Year Effective
BofAML US Corporate 10-15 Year Option-Ad
BofAML US Corporate 10-15 Year Semi-Annu
BofAML US Corporate 1-3 Year Effective Y
BofAML US Corporate 1-3 Year Option-Adju
BofAML US Corporate 1-3 Year Semi-Annual
BofAML US Corporate 15 Year Effective Yi
BofAML US Corporate 15 Year Option-Adjus
BofAML US Corporate 15 Year Semi-Annual
BofAML US Corporate 3-5 Year Effective Y
BofAML US Corporate 3-5 Year Option-Adju
BofAML US Corporate 3-5 Year Semi-Annual
BofAML US Corporate 5-7 Year Effective Y
BofAML US Corporate 5-7 Year Option-Adju
BofAML US Corporate 5-7 Year Semi-Annual
BofAML US Corporate 7-10 Year Effective
BofAML US Corporate 7-10 Year Option-Adj
BofAML US Corporate 7-10 Year Semi-Annua
BofAML US Corporate 7-10yr Total Return
BofAML US Corporate A Effective Yield
BofAML US Corporate A Option-Adjusted Sp
BofAML US Corporate A Semi-Annual Yield
BofAML US Corporate AA Effective Yield
BofAML US Corporate AA Option-Adjusted S
BofAML US Corporate AA Semi-Annual Yield
BofAML US Corporate AAA Effective Yield
BofAML US Corporate AAA Option-Adjusted
BofAML US Corporate AAA Semi-Annual Yiel
BofAML US Corporate BBB Effective Yield
BofAML US Corporate BBB Option-Adjusted
BofAML US Corporate BBB Semi-Annual Yiel
BofAML US Corporate Master Effective Yie
BofAML US Corporate Master Option-Adjust
BofAML US Corporate Master Semi-Annual Y

The purple is is a dividend adjusted line. The other lines are yield rates  For details see

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/categories/32413

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/categories/32413

VT10-CBOE 10-Year Treasury Note Volati
VBR- CBOE Brazil ETF Volatility Index
VCN- CBOE China ETF Volatility Index
VCO- CBOE Crude Oil ETF Volatility Ind
VDJ- CBOE DJIA Volatility Index
VEM- CBOE Emerging Markets ETF Volatil
VE-  CBOE Energy Sector ETF Volatility
XEC- CBOE EuroCurrency ETF Volatility
XG-  CBOE Gold ETF Volatility Index
VGM- CBOE Gold Miners ETF Volatility I
VN100 CBOE NASDAQ 100 Volatility Index
VR2K-CBOE Russell 2000 Volatility Inde
VXO- CBOE S&P 100 Volatility Index: VX
VSP3-CBOE S&P 500 3-Month Volatility I
VAG- CBOE Silver ETF Volatility Index
VIX- CBOE Volatility Index: VIX

 

Moody's Bond Indexes

The Moody's bond index series available to us is listed below. We license these these indexes using the ticker symbols shown. The indexes which are not in  FT DT DB as of August 2009 are included in this listing to give you a better idea of the components of each index. No further explanation of index components is available. We will add additional on request

  • MD-09      MOODY'S BOND YIELD AVG AAA RATED CORP

  • MD-16      MOODY'S BOND YIELD AVG COMP CORP

  • MD-18      MOODY'S BOND YIELD AVG COMP PUB UTIL

  • MD-21      MOODY's BOND YIELD US GOV 6-MO SECUR

Stock Indexes

Under Construction