Both standards screen the same issuers from the same filings. They reach a different verdict on 459 of the 16,038 companies each of them can decide.
| Dow Jones Islamic | MSCI Islamic M-Series | |
|---|---|---|
| Debt ceiling | 33.0% | 33.33% |
| Measured against | 24-month average market cap | 36-month average market cap |
| Issuers passing | 5,334 | 5,168 |
| Could not establish | 14,418 | 14,504 |
These differ on both levers: the ceiling (33.0% against 33.33%) and, more importantly, the denominator (24-month average market cap against 36-month average market cap).
A company whose market capitalisation halves has a debt ratio that doubles under a market-cap standard and does not move at all under an asset-based one — nothing about the business changed, but the verdict did. How often each lever is the one that splits a pair is measured across every pair here.
Real issuers from HTR's corpus. Open any of them for the ratio each verdict rests on — which is the thing that makes a disagreement checkable rather than merely stated.
YZOFF · PPIH · WYY · RELL · AIR · KTB · DELL · BWEN · BTU · EQX · DGX · FER
CRL · SMXT · PD · SCND · WALD · REYN · SHOE · CVR · MCK · DAVA · FCCN · CHGG
HTR does not have a view on which of these two standards you should follow. They are both published, both applied by real index providers, and both defensible — they simply define the question differently. Which definition applies to you is a matter for your own scholarship.
What HTR can do is compute both honestly, show you where they part company, and never hide the split behind a single blended score.