Credit Suisse and AlphaSimplex Group have launched the industry's first family of benchmarks developed specifically for 130/30 managers.

Until now, 130/30 managers have benchmarked performance against traditional long-only indices, which are not designed to capture the long-short nature of 130/30 type activities. The new 130/30 indices will help the investment community more precisely measure and manage the exposures, and benchmark the performance of their invested assets, according to the companies.

The "Credit Suisse 130/30 Index" family, developed by Credit Suisse in collaboration with AlphaSimplex Group's risk analytics division, will feature both an Investable index and a Look-Ahead index, and will cover a full range of investment styles, market capitalisations and geographies.

The indices will be computed on a daily basis, and the calculation methodology will be transparent and replicable. Both Credit Suisse and AlphaSimplex will offer synthetic exposures and customised solutions related to the investable indices to their respective institutional and other clients.

The 130/30 Index family will be managed by an Index Committee chaired by Dr Andrew Lo, chairman and chief scientific officer of AlphaSimplex Group, and Harris & Harris Group Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Dr Lo said: "Traditional benchmarks are almost always static groupings of securities, so what we're doing - creating an index from a dynamic strategy that we place in the public domain - is a significant innovation. We hope that the increased transparency of these 130/30 indices will give investors and managers greater clarity about the risks and rewards of these hybrid products."