Master limited partnership (MLP) investment and closed-end funds company Tortoise Capital Advisors LLC, Leawood, Kansas, has launched the Tortoise MLP Index, a float-adjusted, capitalization-weighted index of energy MLPs.

The Tortoise MLP Index is made up of publicly traded companies organized as limited partnerships or limited liability companies, engaged in the transportation, production, processing, and/or storage of energy commodities.

Tortoise Capital managing director Zachary Hamel says, "The Tortoise MLP Index broadens the longest-running institutional index, which we developed with our former affiliate, Atlantic Asset Management, in 2003. Our new index makes energy-infrastructure-performance analysis available to a broader base of Tortoise investors.

"Our index includes all energy subsectors and general partners, and is the only MLP index with a 10% cap on any MLP constituent, which in our view reflects a criterion commonly used by a significant segment of our investor base."

The Tortoise MLP Index is calculated by S & P Custom Indices, a service of Standard & Poor’s. The index has a base level of 100 as of its base date of December 31, 1999, is rebalanced quarterly and is independently calculated on both a price-return and a total-return basis. The total-return index level is calculated at the end of each trading day and is available under the ticker TMLPT.

The real-time index level for the price-return version of the index is available as TMLP.