Standard & Poor’s GSCI Covered Call Select Index

Standard & Poor's, the world's leading index provider, announced today the launch of the S&P GSCI Covered Call Select Index. The S&P GSCI Covered Call Select Index seeks to simulate a covered call strategy on those commodities, within the S&P GSCI, that have active options markets.

"The S&P GSCI Covered Call Select Index is part of the next generation of the S&P GSCI family of indices," says Michael G. McGlone, Senior Director of Commodity Indexing at S&P Indices. "It is designed to target lower volatility exposure to commodities, alleviate some of the potential drag on returns from rolling into contango, and seek potential income in a very low fixed rate income environment."

There are ten commodities included in the 2010 S&P GSCI Covered Call Select Index: Coffee, Corn, Cotton, Crude Oil, Gold, Natural Gas, Silver, Soybeans, Sugar, and Wheat.  For each commodity, a separate covered call index is created reflecting an investment in the rolling active futures contract and the systematic writing (selling) of out-of-the-money (OTM) calls on the same contract.  The ten individual covered call indices are then included in a composite covered call index on an equal-weighted basis.

For complete eligibility criteria, as well as index calculation guidelines, visit spgsci.standardandpoors.com.