A message from Peter Kinder, President of KLD

The passing of the Statistical Review on October 31st, 2006 after 16 1/2 years deserves some notice.

KLD made two critical -- and correct -- decisions at the launch of the Domini 400 Social Index (DS400) in May 1990.  The first was that we would issue monthly press releases that reported the DS400’s performance.  That might seem an obvious move -- especially in retrospect -- but if you look at the graph of the DS400's performance over its first year or so, you will see why some outside KLD argued against it.

The second decision was to publish the Stat Review each month and to put it into the hands of as many managers and libraries as possible.  For the better part of a decade, the Stat Review was a critical part of KLD's marketing.  Exposing the performance of our index constituents to academics and to the trade did much to establish KLD's reputation as an index provider.

Two KLD alumni did much of the work on the creation of the Stat Review:  Jack Kranefus and Lloyd Kurtz.  In my opinion, they made an enormous contribution to the success SRI now enjoys by offering academics an easy means to analyze the DS400's performance.

Now with a family of indexes of a number of types, we have had to find other means for reporting performance and opening up our work to analysis.  So it is time for the Stat Review to end.  But not without honor and notice -- and our thanks to all who helped publish and circulate it these last 16 1/2 years.

From KLD Indexes:
The majority of information contained in the Statistical Review is publicly available. You can find the following elements by clicking on a link or pasting the URL into your Internet browser:

1. DS400 Index Methodology: <http://www.kld.com/indexes/ds400index/methodology.html>

2. DS400 Performance and Performance Charts: <http://www.kld.com/indexes/ds400index/performance.html>

3. DS400 Changes: <http://www.kld.com/indexes/index.html> and click on most recent change announcement under “Index Changes”.