Proliferation of new indexes to act as ETF underlyings

Since the end of July, the most popular underlying indexes for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have been Standard & Poor's indexes, which account for 23% of the market share, and the MSCI Barra indexes, with 22% of the market share, according to a research report by ETF consultants Deborah Fuhr and Shane Kelly. But the report also notes a proliferation of new indexes from index providers to form the basis for ETFs. Many of these indexes use diverse weighting methodologies, such as market