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Measuring Climate Risk in Real Estate Portfolios 

ESG Research , Real Estate Investing

By evaluating real estate portfolios in terms of different physical risks as well as under different transition-risk scenarios, investors may be able to build a more complete picture of their exposure.

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Would Integrating ESG in Chinese Equities Have Worked? 

ESG Research , Emerging Markets , Global Investing

ESG ratings have reflected financial risk and returns in developed-market and emerging-market equities. But was this true in China, where ESG considerations are still in their infancy?

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Factors in Focus: How Trendy Is Your Style Factor? 

Factor Investing , Risk Management

As markets rallied worldwide, investors took on high-beta exposure and rotated away from stocks with lower risk. The latest edition of Factors in Focus explores the details.

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Surging Corporate-Bond Supply: Reason to Worry? 

Fixed Income , Risk Management

In the months since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies issued a large amount of corporate bonds. As a result of this surge, corporate debt has grown substantially — a burden that institutional credit investors may wish to monitor closely.

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Did Value-Factor Exposure Deliver for Value Funds? 

Factor Investing , Global Investing

Building on previous MSCI research into the nuanced performance of the value factor, including the impact of sectors and other style factors, we look at how exposure to value drove the performance of actively managed value funds.

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ESG Ratings: How the Weighting Scheme Affected Performance 

Global Investing , ESG Research

Our recent research suggests that environmental and social issues were more industry specific and tended to show up in financial measures over a longer time frame compared to governance issues. How can E, S and G issues be combined?

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Short Interest Factor Performance in Times of Crisis 

Factors , Factor Investing

Given recent short interest factor performance, we asked: What has been the relationship between this factor and large market drawdowns? Were there changes in short selling during COVID-19? Did short-selling bans affect short interest factor performance?

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COVID-19 and Real Estate: The Devil Is in the Dispersion 

Real Estate Investing , Risk Management

Many real estate markets were showing signs of a slowdown even before COVID-19’s negative impact on property portfolios. Has this correction been similar to previous ones? We looked at dispersion of returns, within and across real estate sectors, for the answer.

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Which ESG Issues Mattered Most? Defining Event and Erosion Risks 

Global Investing , ESG Research

Very different ESG issues can be material for different industries. Our research suggests that risks can be divided into two main types: “event” risks and “erosion” risks to companies’ long-term competitiveness. Which ones mattered most for E, S and G?

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Is ESG All About the ‘G’? That Depends on Your Time Horizon. 

Global Investing , ESG Research

The conventional wisdom has it that governance is the most dominant of the three E, S and G pillars. But our analysis finds different results when looking at contribution to performance over different time horizons.