Wilshire to drop Dow Jones for index provision

Wilshire will drop Dow Jones as the calculating engine of its indices, and will independently managed its more than 200 indices, including the high-profile Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, from April 1.

Speaking exclusively with conexust1f.flywheelstaging.com in the Wilshire headquarters in Santa Monica, vice president of Wilshire Indices, Bill Waid, said it was by mutual agreement that the well-known relationship would end, and that Wilshire had hired another firm, Interactive Data Corp, to be the calculating engine for the indices.

The brand will remain exclusively with Wilshire and Waid said the firm would continue to create indices, with the most recent in the fall of 2007 being the Dow Jones Wilshire global total market index.

There were a number of indices under the Dow Jones relationship that were discussed, and Waid said Wilshire would still contemplate launching these in the future, including global style indices, and possibly 130/30 funds.

“Appropriate benchmarks will always be essential in disseminating between alpha and beta, he said.

However despite this continued expansion, Waid said Wilshire had no intention of being an index provider.

Instead, he said, each index had a specific reason for creation and had to fit into Wilshire performance analytics division with the aim of helping to explain the market.

“All the indexes we create fit into the existing Wilshire product lines, he said.

Wilshire has consulting, funds management and analytics clients with more than US$12.5 trillion in assets in 20 countries.