Blog Posts

Anna Georgieva is part of the Qontigo Sustainable Investment Team. As someone who has seen firsthand the evolution of the sustainability space we sat down with Anna to get her thoughts on the intersection of financial markets and ESG and what to look out for in the coming months. 

The iSTOXX APG World Responsible Investment Indices were designed to ‘layer in’ various sustainability filters in order to measure the effect on risk and returns of each individual ESG criteria on a developed-markets global equities portfolio. Hamish Seegopaul and Yurong Gu explain how the new indices came about and discuss the value of the collaboration with the Netherlands’ APG and with BlackRock.

The results of the STOXX Global ESG Leaders Index’s annual review are out. Qontigo’s broadest benchmark tracking the highest ESG-scoring companies now comprises 410 constituents: 270 from Europe, 79 from North America and 61 from Asia/Pacific.

As the DAX indices complete the biggest reform in their three-decade history, we talk to Stephan Flaegel, Chief Product Officer, Indices and Benchmarks, at Qontigo, to hear what the new rules mean for the flagship DAX and how quality, simplicity and alignment with international standards were key drivers in the overhaul.

Ronald van Dijk, Deputy CIO at APG Asset Management, discusses how the recently launched iSTOXX APG World Responsible Investment Indices help pension funds and other investors incorporate different layers of sustainability ambitions on portfolios in an innovative, flexible and transparent way.

In our latest whitepaper, Inflation and Its Impact on the Stock-Bond Correlation, we examined the historical interaction of equity and bond-market returns over the last 60 years to identify the main triggers of shifts in their relative directions—especially situations that might prompt the two asset classes to persistently move together. We identified three possible scenarios.

With DAX increasing its composition from 30 stocks to 40, we review the changes to the DAX® ESG Target Index, a sustainable version of the flagship German benchmark.

Investors and companies increasingly want to contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals through their business activities. But the lack of quality data needed to measure and identify company contributions remains a challenge. But now there’s a solution – some of the world’s largest asset owners have established the Sustainable Development Investments Asset Owner Platform, or SDI AOP.

With the flagship German benchmark increasing its constituency from 30 stocks to 40, we look at the effects of the overhaul from the perspective of average constituent size and equity turnover.

The STOXX® Global 1800 Index gains 2.5% in dollars in August, lifting this year’s advance to 17.5%, amid economic optimism and expectations that interest rates will remain low. The VSTOXX® index, the gauge of European equity volatility, remains higher than it was before COVID-19 hit financial markets in the first quarter of 2020.

In the updated blog post, we answer some of the most frequently asked questions about cloud technology.

Impact investing is growing as a means to generate positive, real-world change. But defining, measuring and standardizing it is no easy task. A joint whitepaper from Qontigo and Clarity AI looks at some of the frameworks that are taking on these challenges and helps shed light on the way forward for the strategy.