Goldman Sachs has announced the sale of its widely watched commodities index and two stock index families to Standard & Poor's. This deal follows the sale last year of two credit indexes to International Index. So what's going on? Some speculate that the securities giant, which does a lot of trading for its own accounts, wants to avoid any conflicts of interest. Recall that previous changes to the index, made by people without trading authority, nevertheless spawned massive moves in the market as traders adjusted their passive positions. Then again, the index business, while an area of innovation right now, is not necessarily a business that offers the high margins that Goldman would prefer. No one ever thought that Goldman would enter the ETF game.

For more:
- here's a MarketWatch article