Morningstar plans to launch several new fixed-income indexes beginning later this quarter, confirmed spokeswoman Alexa Auerbach. The initial Morningstar Fixed Income Indexes will cover core categories of U.S. Treasury and corporate bonds. The news was first reported Tuesday afternoon on Pensions & Investments' website, www.pionline.com. As part of the launch, Eric Jacobson was named director of fixed-income strategies at Morningstar, reporting to Sanjay Arya, director of Morningstar Indexes. The position is new. Mr. Jacobson was a senior analyst in the firm's editorial group.
"While there are numerous fixed-income indexes available today, most of them are difficult to replicate in an investment vehicle because their holdings are so vast," Mr. Jacobson said in a news release. "With this family of fixed-income indexes, we aim to strike a balance in the construction process between including every security available to investors in a sector and capturing a liquid pool of securities that mirror the overall economic importance of each sector."
