FTSE Group and asset management firm Westpeak have combined to launch the FTSE ActiveBeta index series. The new series uses the FTSE All-World index series as its base universe.

The FTSE ActiveBeta index series is based on the premise that there are systematic, identifiable sources of return in the equity markets. By splitting the investment universe into high momentum and high value stocks, the index’s designers assert, they can identify two such sources of systematic return.

The two indices – momentum and value – can then be combined in the ActiveBeta momentum and value index (MVI), which, according to Khalid Ghayur, chief executive officer of Westpeak, has outperformed standard capitalisation-weighted equity indices consistently and in most markets over time.

The FTSE/Westpeak index collaboration comes as the latest in a series of non-standard equity indices, all of which aim to identify superior sources of risk-adjusted return for investors. The FTSE/RAFI index series, FTSE EDHEC risk-efficient index series, Tobam’s “anti-benchmark” index and Lyxor’s WISE quantitative strategy are just a few of the equity index methodologies of this type, which Chris Sutton, senior investment consultant at Towers Watson in the UK, has named the “beta prime” family.