Time for a more modern bond benchmark?

Time for a modern bond benchmark?

Mirela Vlad, regional director of MTS indices at FTSE, explains why it may be time to challenge fixed income indices, some of which are outdated and stuck in a ‘legacy' system

While financial indices are traditionally associated with equities, fixed income benchmarks are also popular among the investment community. This area of the industry has grown significantly in the past few years, both in size but also in terms of the range of instruments and variety of market participants. Fixed income indices are now developed by different institutions, and recent debate in the wider bond market has resulted in challenges to the practices of a number of legacy providers, particularly banks, which many believe have an outdated approach. End users are demanding that f...