Manual Contents Chapter 2: Indexes Heatmap

Chapter 1 — Introduction

Financial indexes have become key instruments to measure the performance of financial markets; at the same time, they serve as underlying for investment products such as funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) or derivatives.

Highly relevant financial indexes include well-known equity indexes such as the S&P 500 or the Nikkei 225, exchange rates, commodity prices, treasury yields and central bank rates — all of which IndexesIQ covers with long-term risk and performance analysis functions in the main window.

Overview of the IndexesIQ application showing index names, regions, currencies, historical performance, volatility and return correlations — **Figure 1:** Overview of the IndexesIQ application, showing (from left to right) the name, region and currency of indexes, historical performance and volatility as well as return correlations between indexes.

The application is organised into three panes:

Index Heatmap: Shows a summary table of global markets performance as well as correlations between markets. → Chapter 2
Long-term Performance: A charting tool to plot long-term risk and return charts. → Chapter 3
Index Derivative Strategies: A simulation tool for long-term derivative strategies including periodic roll-overs. → Chapters 4–7

For background on how major financial indexes are constructed and maintained, the BIS financial statistics portal and index provider methodologies from MSCI and FTSE Russell are authoritative references.