Markit iBoxx indices cover the cash bond market. They are ideal benchmarks for professional use, as they comprise liquid investment grade issues. The structure of Markit iBoxx indices enables investors to analyse and select benchmarks that reflect their investment profile. They are ideal for fixed income research, essential for asset allocation and indispensable for performance evaluation. Underlying bond prices and indices are available in real time for Euro and Sterling and end of day for USD and Asia.

The hierarchical Markit iBoxx index structure allows drill-downs to reach the specific information level required. The indices are also sorted by type of issuer, maturity band, credit rating and sector, allowing segmentation and analysis in accordance with investment strategy.

Benchmark indices:

• EUR and Sterling. These include investment grade fixed income issues in Euro and Sterling. Constituent lists and index values are published also in real time, ensuring that managers have the required tools at their disposal for benchmarking and risk control.
  
  The EUR and Sterling index families each consist of four major sub-indices: Sovereigns; Sub-sovereigns (Agencies, supranationals and government guaranteed organizations); Collateralized (covered and other securitized bonds); Corporates, with relevant maturity, rating and sector indices too.
  
  
• USD. Includes US Dollar-denominated fixed income investment grade issues. The Markit iBoxx USD bond indices comprise Treasury, Agency and Corporate issues. In addition to overall indices, separate indices are published for Domestic, Eurodollar issues, as are maturity, rating and sector indices.
  
  
• Asia. The Asian index family comprises local currency investment grade fixed income issues of the following markets: China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. The Asian bond indices include Sovereign and Sub-sovereign issues.
  
  
• GEMX. The Markit iBoxx Global Emerging Markets Local Currency Bond Index in cooperation with IFC comprises sovereign debt from a broad range of emerging markets. Regional and country indices are published, as are hedged and unhedged returns.
  
  
• Global Inflation-Linked Indices. The Markit iBoxx Global Inflation-Linked indices cover the major sovereign and quasi-sovereign inflation linked bond markets of the world.
  
  
• EUR High Yield Index. The Markit iBoxx EUR High Yield Index represents the sub-investment grade fixed-income market for Euro denominated corporate bonds.
  
  The indices are structured to provide international investors with accurate benchmarks and a platform for research and structured products. The hierarchy of the indices allows for non-overlapping aggregation of the local indices into the broad index.
  
  

Rules Based
Markit iBoxx indices are rules-based to ensure they are objective and replicable. The selection criteria used to determine which bonds are included, mean that the indices represent the part of the market that is tradable and thus available to investors and asset managers.

A complete set of rules and guides to each index family is available as Acrobat files.

Independent Quality Control
Our indices are produced with high quality analytical data and adhere to rigorous quality control standards.

Comprehensive quality controls ensure that users may rely on the indices as a proxy for the market and that they can serve as a basis for derivative products and for valuing portfolios.
Markit iBoxx indices are constructed in line with the highest standards and conform to the EFFAS European Bond Commission Standardised Rules on Constructing and Calculating Bond Indices*.

Output
Every bond index is published as a price and as a total return index. Furthermore average analytical values are calculated for the indices, including yield, duration, modified duration and convexity – with and without cash, on a straight, annual and semi-annual basis.

Research
Many banks have integrated Markit iBoxx indices into their capital markets research, thus ensuring that users enjoy competitive, independent research based upon a common set of underlying data.
IIC and its partners are committed to the success of Markit iBoxx indices and continue to bring new products to the market designed to help clients make better decisions on the basis of transparent and accessible data.

The Markit iBoxx US Pension Liability Indices comprise a three-index set of benchmarks that reflects pension liability performance. The indices help plan sponsors, consultants and investment managers construct more successful liability-based investment strategies.

The indices enable consultants, plan sponsors and other investors to manage long-duration bond portfolios and other liability-driven strategies against them. Compared to other options currently available for liability benchmarks, these indices are more comprehensive and offer the following advantages:

1. They are based on actual liability profiles and mimic the investment grade yield curve. They are therefore more appropriate than most existing indices.
2. They are published daily and are directly investable, using the LIBOR interest rate swap curve as the discount curve – a highly liquid universe.
3. They provide the flexibility to use combinations of the indices in order to accurately represent customized liability profiles based on a plan’s specific participant population.

For the version of current Markit iBoxx US Pension Liability index rules, please click here.

In addition to the broader benchmark indices a family of liquid bond indices is calculated. This is designed to track the most liquid bonds in the market. The liquid indices contain a strictly limited number of issues, thereby making them easier to replicate and ideally suited as the underlying for a variety of replicating trading strategies or for derivative products.

• EUR and GBP Liquid IG Indices. These consist of a subset of the most liquid bonds from the Markit iBoxx EUR and GBP benchmark index families and are designed for use as basis for derivatives and exchange traded funds and to reduce tracking and hedging costs.
  
  
• USD Liquid IG Index. Designed to represent the corporate investment grade USD denominated bonds market using the most liquid issues available, this index is a subset of the Markit iBoxx USD benchmark corporate index.
  
  
• USD Liquid HY Index. This index comprises the most liquid USD denominated sub-investment grade issues.
  

The Same High Standards...
Markit iBoxx liquid bond indices provide a transparent view of the most actively traded portion of the market. Markit iBoxx indices are strictly rules-based to ensure transparency and dependability for market participants.

The Same Quality Prices...
The liquid indices use the same prices (and go through the same quality control procedures) as the broader benchmark indices, thus ensuring they are consistent with one another.

... But Different Rules
To better reflect market conventions the Markit iBoxx EUR Liquid and Markit iBoxx GBP Liquid indices are re-balanced quarterly. Markit iBoxx USD liquid indices are re-balanced monthly. Re-balancing takes transaction costs into account.

The rules are publicly available, so managers may independently replicate the indices. See liquid index guide or fact sheet.

The Markit iBoxx EUR ABS 50 Index contains the 50 largest and most liquid European AAA-rated floating rate ABS/MBS securities. The index is the result of increased growth in the ABS/MBS market in Europe. The rapidly growing investor base faces a lack of standardized tradable indices. The Markit iBoxx ABS 50 index serves as a high quality underlying for innovative derivative products.

The index is rebalanced quarterly to keep track of new issuance. New series are launched on the first day of March, June, September and December each year. Each series expires two business days prior to the 3rd Wednesday of the month six months after launch.

In addition to index and bond price levels a wide range of selected analytical values is provided, both for the individual bond issues and for the indices themselves. These include yield, maturity, duration, modified duration, spreads and convexity, both as annual and as semi-annual values as well as including or excluding cash. Markit iBoxx analytical values are available under the Data menu. 

1. on this website, please select an index in „Quick Data Access” on the left side of the screen.
   
   
2. through our FTP service. For more information or to register please click to DATA -> FTP-Service or follow this link.
   
   
3. via many data vendors, including Bloomberg, Global Insight, Reuters, Thomson Financial, MoneyLine Telerate and others.
   
   
4. through a number of database and related service providers that also carry Markit iBoxx indices. This includes Barra, Datastream, Exshare, FactSet, Wilshire Associates and others
   
   
5. on other websites carrying financial information
   
   
6. on www.deutsche-boerse.com/iboxx_e
   
   
7. historical data is available DATA