The 11-strong consortium of dealers behind the iBoxx-labelled US investment grade default swap index are to launch a high yield index next week, in the latest attempt to overthrow Trac-x, the JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley-led family of credit derivative indices.

Just a month after first taking on the more-established US Trac-x family of indices, dealers behind the iBoxx index claim to have traded over $100bn (€84.8bn) worth of notional contracts against their investment grade index. Trac-x dealers in the US claim to have traded a similar amount, and to have seen no fall-off in activity since the launch of the rival product.