And you thought the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 was complete…

Dow Jones Wilshire officially launched its global index family this morning, October 16, with the simultaneous rollout of a complete set of size, industry, regional and country indexes stretching across 56 countries around the globe. Style indexes are planned for 2007.

For more on the index family, see our detailed coverage of the initial announcement, from March. 

The move is part of a broader expansion of the indexing industry overseas, driven in part by an increase in investor interest in international diversification and in part by the increased availability of solid data on international equities.  In fact, Dow Jones Wilshire isn't the only U.S. indexing giant expanding abroad - Russell is also readying a rollout of international indexes.  It's no surprise, given that U.S. investor fund flows into international equities account for a larger and larger portion of total flows.

"As the world we live in seems to become smaller, the market universe we invest in is growing larger, along with the accompanying opportunities and risks," said Michael A. Petronella, president of Dow Jones Indexes. "This suite of indexes offers plan sponsors, trustees, asset managers and individual investors the best available gauges for consistent benchmarking of their investments in domestic, international and emerging markets."

The piece de resistance of the new index family is the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Total Market Index, a float-adjusted index of more than 12,000 stocks from 56 countries.  It is perhaps the most complete global index, something you'd expect from the group that manages the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, the most complete U.S. stock index (the 5000 is a component of the global index).

The Total index is joined by a full swath of regional indexes:  Americas, Africa & Middle East, Asia-Pacific, and Europe; Americas exUS, Asia-Pacific exJapan, Middle East, Africa, Developed Europe, Emerging Europe, Latin America, Developed Europe exUK, Euro Area and Nordic Europe.

Dow Jones Wilshire is going all-out pushing the development of these indexes, hosting a string of high-profile conferences in cities around the U.S. to discuss the critical issues in international investing.

Among other fallout, these launches will significantly turn up the heat on MSCI, which has built its indexing business by dominating the market for international benchmarks. With Russell, Dow Jones and others entering the space (and S&P already there), MSCI will have to fight to maintain market share.