S&P to adopt Case-Shiller housing indexes for CME derivatives

Standards & Poor’s (S&P) plans to offer housing indexes, which will provide the basis for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) new breed of property derivatives.

Working with New Jersey-based securities firm MacroMarkets and Wisconsin-based technology firm Fiserv, S&P will produce the Case-Shiller home price indexes, with Yale professor and co-creator Robert Shiller joining the index committee. “Like a lot of the people looking at the housing market, we looked at it and thought it’s probably inefficient and needs to be brought into the modern world,” David Blitzer, New York-based managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P told RiskNews.

Although S&P entertained the idea about three to five years ago, it was only six months ago that the credit rating and index agency began to move forward on the proposal, said Blitzer. At that point, the chief executive of MacroMarkets, Samuel Masucci, presented his ideas to S&P. And, in meetings held in late December, the CME urged S&P to become involved, arguing that it was critical for the launch of the exchange's housing futures and options planned for late April.

There will be regional indexes based on 10 major metropolitan areas: Boston, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington DC. The composite index will be an average weighted by market capitalisation. A modified version of the current Case-Shiller index forms the basis of government’s Housing Prices Index (HPI).

Only users who have a paid subscription or are part of a corporate subscription are able to print or copy content.

To access these options, along with all other subscription benefits, please contact info@risk.net or view our subscription options here: http://subscriptions.risk.net/subscribe

You are currently unable to copy this content. Please contact info@risk.net to find out more.

You need to sign in to use this feature. If you don’t have a Risk.net account, please register for a trial.

Sign in
You are currently on corporate access.

To use this feature you will need an individual account. If you have one already please sign in.

Sign in.

Alternatively you can request an individual account here