Infrastructure benchmarks in context: What every investor should know

Infrastructure benchmark construction, rather than a universally superior index design, drives meaningful differences in infrastructure exposure, performance and risk.

• The FTSE Global Core Infrastructure 50/50 Index, Dow Jones Brookfield Global Infrastructure Index and S&P Global Infrastructure Index all seek to represent global infrastructure but use different constituent-selection, sector-allocation and weighting methodologies.
• FTSE offers broad exposure across utilities, transportation, telecommunications and pipelines, while S&P has greater pipeline exposure and excludes communications infrastructure.
• Dow Jones Brookfield uses market-cap weighting, includes only transmission- and distribution-focused utilities, and therefore has greater midstream-energy exposure, less utility exposure and a larger North American footprint.
• Relative performance can change with market conditions: FTSE benefited in 2015 from lower midstream exposure, in 2020 from lower exposure to airports, toll roads and midstream energy, while S&P benefited in 2025 from Mexican airports, European electric utilities and two U.S. independent power producers.
• S&P's recent outperformance came with trade-offs: FTSE and Dow Jones Brookfield showed lower volatility, lower equity beta and lower downside capture than the broad equity market, while also delivering stronger Sharpe ratios.

Takeaway: Investors should assess infrastructure benchmarks over a full market cycle and choose them according to their desired exposures and risk characteristics; active management may help avoid benchmark biases and adjust for valuations, fundamentals, regulation and changing capital-investment or technology cycles.