Luke Flemmer, MSCI’s head of private assets, provides his views on how the industry, tools and participants stand to evolve as the worlds of public and private investing converge and more investors adopt a total portfolio approach.

Our materiality assessment indicates that simplifying the current CSRD reporting framework to as few as 300 to 500 data points may improve usability and interoperability, while still maintaining most investor-critical disclosures.

Recent trends in the buyout exit market show that assets are being sold at lower median-valuation multiples, despite stronger margin growth and reduced leverage. Hidden pressure points lurk. Limited partners may wish to look beyond net asset values.

From car factories to aluminum smelters to textiles, the purported goal of the Trump administration is to 'reshore' American manufacturing. It’s a goal, in part, supported by his predecessor, Joe Biden, who enacted the CHIPS act to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to America. So, let's say manufacturing does come back and companies expand their current factories to meet demand. What climate-driven risks—water shortages, extreme heat, or flooding—will these sites face, and where will those hazards hit hardest? We’ll explore the answers on this episode of Sustainability Now!

The U.S. equity market’s struggles in early Q2 2025, combined with renewed opportunities for investing in non-U.S. equity markets, may encourage asset allocators to lessen the focus on home bias and reassess broader geographic exposures. 

Certain economic and factor exposures were helpful performance stabilizers for Chinese equities during early April’s tariff turbulence. Chinese state ownership and limited dependency on U.S. revenues topped the list. 

We report the performance of key asset classes based on the Q4 2024 update of the MSCI Private Capital Universe and chart the latest on private-equity distribution rates — a key concern for asset owners.

While headline tariff risk has been dominated by equity levels and Treasury yields, stress in fixed-income markets is also evident. Overall levels remain below previous crisis peaks, but the speed of this move is unusual — comparable only to the speed seen during the COVID-19 sell-off and global financial crisis.

Amid surging defense investments and looming tariffs, investors face complex challenges. Navigating the intricate and global supply chain of the aerospace and defense industry becomes crucial to assessing company preparedness for disruptions.

Future index innovations emerge from past experience. Within the context of 55 years as a global index provider, we review major global-equity trends via a series of charts and offer deeper insight into the role of index-construction parameters.

We previously found that stocks and bonds of companies that were more resilient to sustainability risks exhibited lower market volatility. Through the initial market turmoil that followed the U.S. tariff announcements on April 2, we tested whether this resilience would hold true for corporate bonds.

Though many of the headlines follow every twist and turn that equities have taken over the last month, fixed income remains an important part of the story. From drivers of inflation to the relative strength of the U.S. dollar and the rise of private credit as a funding source for corporate America, understanding the shifting dynamics is key as investors plot their next move.

Investors in private real estate are assessing the potential impact of tariff turmoil on direct real-estate performance. Public-market indicators could provide a signpost on trends.

Economists have cut growth forecasts and raised inflation expectations since the U.S. tariff announcement on April 2. For multi-asset-class investors, the key question is how shifting macroeconomic expectations could affect asset prices. 

Even amid a market downturn, investors in private-capital funds should be aware of the risk of a surge in capital calls. We chart the trends across asset classes at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.

Newly imposed U.S. tariffs have triggered market volatility and strategic recalibrations across industries. In this episode, we explore the role of supply chain traceability in managing risk — from regulatory exposure to sustainability trade-offs.

In this video, MSCI experts Abhishek Gupta and Thomas Verbraken explore how investors can use stress testing and economic exposure data to better understand the impact of macroeconomic shocks—such as trade tariffs—on equity portfolios.

Traceable supply chains can offer clarity amid trade-policy volatility, aiding businesses in forecasting costs, navigating tariffs and reducing investor risk.

Tariff uncertainty, inflation and high interest rates are challenging U.S. utilities’ renewable-energy investments. Long-term decarbonization remains critical, however, for sustained market outperformance.

In our series dedicated to bonds labeled green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked, we break down the market by multiple bond and issuer characteristics to identify key trends in this rapidly growing and increasingly diverse market.

U.S. manufacturing facilities face concentrated acute hazards like tornadoes and hailstorms. Our analysis of over 100,000 sites globally identifies sectors requiring targeted risk-management solutions.

Investors in private-equity funds already faced depressed distribution rates before the recent public-market turmoil. We chart how public-market returns and downturns in buyout and venture-capital distributions have played out historically.

Our latest analysis underscores sustainability, especially good governance, as a defensive financial strategy. Companies with high MSCI ESG Ratings have shown superior performance amid periods of significant economic disruptions.

U.S. tariffs sent shockwaves through global markets. Our scenario analysis shows a bleak outlook for multi-asset class portfolios. Shifts in allocation strategies, however, have offered relative downside protection and new opportunities in turbulent markets.

Markets are experiencing two major events together: a correction from lofty valuations combined with the economic fallout of trade tensions. Despite a partial reversal of tariffs, macro fundamentals suggest U.S. equity valuations are still high — and risk much greater drawdowns. 

As I type this, we are in the midst of a market sell off. So, it’s a perfect time to look at what happened to our ESG indexes during the last market sell offs. Fun times!

The tariffs announced by the Trump administration on April 2 have increased market volatility, creating both risks and opportunities. Long-horizon investors may seek to exploit short-term views without straying too far from their long-horizon allocation.

As the year started, the overriding theme was the dominance of the U.S. in the world's financial markets. However, there were already some uncertainties on the horizon. Three months later we have seen quite astounding action on both the policy front and in financial markets. MSCI’s roundtable of experts provide their unique perspective on it all.

Editorial Note: This episode was recorded prior to recent macroeconomic developments and the tariffs announced by the Trump administration on April 2, 2025. While the content explores potential outcomes related to tariffs, it does not account for events that have occurred since recording. However, the insights remain relevant and may still help investors navigate the current dynamics of the global markets.

Economic fallout from shifting U.S. trade policy and heightened market volatility could prove a headwind for fundraising in private credit amid early signs of a slowdown in the asset class. 

Heightened volatility and unusual term-structure inversion following U.S. tariffs signal prolonged market uncertainty, prompting investors to reassess risk management and increasingly utilize derivatives to strategically hedge portfolios against further disruptions.

Tariff announcements on April 2 sparked a sharp sell-off in equities, with developed markets leading the decline. Energy and metals fell most, amid economic slowdown fears. Geographic revenue exposure explains stock-price movements, beyond traditional factors.

In this exclusive conversation, Mark Carver, Head of Equity Analytics and Global Head of Equity Solutions at MSCI, explores how markets have reacted so far this year, what the latest tariff developments could mean for inflation and interest rates, and what to expect as we look ahead to 2025.

Tariff risks are at center stage for investors. To help manage the uncertainty, this blog post shows how revenue-exposure data and a scenario-analysis framework enable equity investors to translate targeted industry assumptions into potential portfolio-level impacts.

Does the defense industry have an ESG problem? Is there such a thing as an ethical bomb? These are questions emerging as the European Union ramps up investment in its defense sector as part of a broader rearmament effort. In this episode, we examine whether these concerns are well-founded or simply a dubious proposition.

U.S. markets declined in the first quarter amid souring consumer sentiment, inflation and tariff headlines and disruption from China’s low-cost DeepSeek model. We explore global markets responses to trade tensions and why investment quality may be a pivotal risk factor in the AI race.

With global economic divergence persisting, more asset owners and asset managers are addressing the increasing heterogeneity within emerging markets (EM) by carving out China from EM allocations. We explore the rationale and its implications.

Real-estate debt funds in Europe continued on a stable path of returns in late 2024, in line with the single-digit gains seen in recent years. For private-equity real estate, however, returns have been on a roller coaster.

Over the long term, companies with higher MSCI ESG Ratings have outperformed in Japan’s equity markets. Among the three pillars, governance demonstrated the highest outperformance, followed by the social and environmental factors.

It’s been 25 years since the peak of the dot-com bubble. To mark the occasion, we discuss parallels between today’s AI-driven market boom and the dot-com era with MSCI’s Donald Sze, exploring market sentiment, lessons from history and implications for investors navigating current dynamics.

Traditional asset allocation theories often overlook private assets. We provide a practical blueprint for total portfolio allocation management, focused on a deeper understanding of market correlations to better manage concentration risk and uncertainty in expected returns.

The pullback in U.S. mega-caps coincides with the 25th anniversary of the dot-com bubble’s peak. The parallels between then and now are striking. However, today’s top-performers exhibit higher profitability, stronger growth and lower valuations than their dot-com counterparts.

Markets may still be overvalued after the recent correction. The sell-off in U.S. equities brought a 10% drawdown, but macro fundamentals suggest the market may still be 20% overvalued, and could go even lower if tighter supply brings higher inflation and lower growth.

Egg prices in the U.S. have soared, but is avian flu the only culprit? This week, we crack open the structural issues in the egg industry, from supply chain vulnerabilities to price-fixing allegations. Plus, what it all means for investors — and your breakfast.

Investors and developers aiming to position offices to meet occupiers’ demands could do well to examine what development strategies have worked in the past. We use a performance measure that addresses the uneven cash flows in developments to show returns.

After the “deconglomeration” wave of the 1980s, we examined how firms along the diversification spectrum have performed across regions and their exposures to certain factors, sectors and fundamental metrics. Important differences emerge. 

In February 2025, the EU Commission proposed the first Omnibus Package of sustainability rules, with the aim of simplifying and reducing EU sustainability reporting requirements. But did it work? Has the outcome been "good" or "bad"? And what are these new rules set to do to the future of sustainable finance in the EU? Listen to this episode of ESG now to find out! 

NOTE: The first 12:10 of this episode provides a background of what the Omnibus proposal actually proposes. If you just want our takes on the good, the bad, and the future of this proposal, skip that section! 

Climate-transition risks are reshaping lending and investment activities. Find out how banks can navigate these challenges with scenario-based risk-management strategies to meet new regulatory expectations.

Gulf Cooperation Council equity markets may offer diversification benefits due to lower correlations with global markets. Recent reforms and market dynamics have improved returns and reduced risks, making GCC futures a potentially valuable portfolio tool.

The Trump administration announced its intention to impose trade tariffs on several countries. A potential response from these nations could be retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports. Investors will want to understand which market segments are most exposed to potential tariff-related disruptions.

Monetary policy, strong U.S. growth and global uncertainty could lead to U.S.-dollar strength. We highlight this scenario, using the MSCI Macro-Finance Model, to help multi-asset-class investors assess the potential impact of tariffs and a stronger U.S. dollar on their portfolios. 

Banks face growing pressure from regulators to assess the risks climate change poses to their loan portfolios. Some regions, like Europe, are tightening standards, while others, like the U.S., remain hesitant. Our latest research reveals that banks with high exposure to industrials — especially in APAC — could see default risks rise by 50% over the next decade. Will global banks adapt, or are we heading toward a financial blind spot? Find out on this episode of ESG now! 

Why have some emerging-market equities bucked the underperformance trend versus the developed markets following the global financial crisis in 2008? We identified the shared fundamental attributes of these “long-term compounder” stocks.  

Trade tensions are rising — what does this mean for investors? MSCI’s Abhishek Gupta and Thomas Verbraken discuss the latest tariff developments, their potential impact on inflation and interest rates and how they could reshape market dynamics in 2025 and beyond.

Private sources of capital were the most dominant buyers of U.S. commercial real estate in 2024, while institutional investors gained ground. We analyze the activity of different buyer groups to assess the market's momentum.

With ESMA’s fund-naming guidelines coming into effect in May, sustainability-related fund names are declining while transition-themed funds are growing. Data-driven insights will be key to navigating and understanding underlying sustainability attributes.

Sustainability data can signal stock-market torpedoes — or long-term winners. Our research reveals the key environmental, social and governance indicators that helped investors avoid sharp drawdowns and capture outperformance.

Oil and gas are in, renewables are out — at least, that’s what the headlines say. But what’s really happening in energy markets? We take a closer look at shifting U.S. policies, investor reactions, and how global energy trends might shape the future.

A portfolio’s carbon footprint can shift for many reasons — corporate action, market forces or portfolio rebalancing. Our new unified framework breaks down carbon-footprint attribution across asset classes to help investors pinpoint the key drivers.

Some emerging-market (EM) stocks have bucked the trend of underperforming headline EM indexes following the 2008 global financial crisis. We used nearly 30 years of index- and stock-level returns to identify their shared fundamental attributes. 

Commercial-property investment in the APAC region expanded in 2024, boosted by a series of entity-level transactions including the region’s largest deal ever.

European commercial-property investment edged back to growth in 2024, with deal volume concentrated in the apartment, industrial and hotel markets, while trading of offices stagnated.

We propose a risk-based framework to aid asset allocators, including wealth managers, in better understanding active ETFs as an investment category and to help discern between genuinely active strategies and enhanced indexing. 

Investors in private markets enter 2025 with USD 2 trillion in dry powder but also challenges such as historically low distribution rates and elevated interest rates. MSCI Research highlights four trends across asset classes that deserve investors’ attention.

Ashley Lester returns with his roundtable of experts from across MSCI Research and Development to examine the markets with a 360° perspective. The theme of the year is U.S. dominance. What will investors be watching as they seek to steady an unbalanced world?

Combining economic-exposure and geospatial data can help global equity investors gain a clearer picture of which firms and industries may feel the fallout if higher tariffs materialize. 

2025 will bring profound shifts driven by geopolitics, disruptive technology and environmental challenges. Discover how these unprecedented changes will shift the risk landscape for investors and translate into unprecedented opportunity.

Inflation has eased recently, but secular trends like surging debt levels, deglobalization, aging populations and supply-chain disruptions could keep it elevated in the longer run, along with rates. This scenario poses challenges for multi-asset-class investors.

The year 2024 marked commercial property’s tentative emergence from the downturn that began in 2022 with the sharp rise in interest rates. MSCI Research explores five key themes for investors to consider in 2025.  

As the calendar flips to 2025, Chief Research Officer, Ashley Lester and team identify and analyze the key themes that will dominate investor attention this year. 

The global carbon credit market remained on ice last year, with flat demand and declining prices. However, there are some signs of a coming thaw. If the ice melts, our projections suggest it could be worth USD 7 to 35 billion by 2030.

The RCA CPPI measure the actual price movements for commercial properties based on exclusive transaction data using repeat-sales regression methodology. 

The downturn in U.S. real-estate performance focused attention on the appraised values of properties, particularly those enduring the harshest reset. We discuss whether a more transparent measure of value would benefit investors. 

Tradable-bond indexes consist of the most liquid subset of corporate bonds. Maintaining sector and credit-bucket allocations consistent with the underlying benchmark, these indexes may help investors track the market while positioning in more-liquid securities.

Join us as we cover the sustainability and climate trends that our team thinks will shape the year head. We talk about energy transition opportunities that are emerging in private markets, rising social risks and big tech, falling data access for AI models and much more. Here’s to a big, intriguing 2025!

We present a global ranking of asset managers in real estate and infrastructure, based on a manager survey conducted by Property Funds Research.  

A comprehensive guide to the essentials of carbon markets, including compliance and voluntary markets, how companies and investors use carbon credits, and carbon-credit quality. 

Our data-driven framework tracks economic and financial trends for a range of indicators to help clarify their multi-layered impact on China’s markets and economy, and aid global investors in right-sizing the China exposure in their portfolios.

A clear divergence in traded regional options has emerged since early November in both maturities and relative implied-volatility levels. These shifts imply changing perceptions of relative risk in the U.S., EMEA and EM equity markets.   

Coordination across sub-accounts of a U.S.-based individual investor can potentially uncover opportunities to more effectively manage tax liability. Our case study found this result independent of the client’s benchmark-tracking and tax preferences.

We explore the implications of a potential equity sell-off, where we hypothesize that less-risky, more-profitable firms with more-conservative investment practices prove more resilient than their competitors. 

Commercial-property asset managers face an insurance-cost burden that’s doubled in five years. We illustrate the rise and discuss the influence of extreme-weather events.

In concentrated markets, investors can become wary of portfolios dominated by sentiment factors. A simple crowding-score-based constraint can help investors identify securities most at risk of de-rating. 

We put out the world’s first public price forecast for CORSIA!* In it we analyzed the potential demand, supply and prices for credits under CORSIA, and how much the scheme could cost the airline industry in terms of higher ticket prices or lower profits. In this episode we explore the reports findings from one of its main authors. Enjoy!

*Based on review of publicly available carbon credit research and ratings providers, as of Nov. 1, 2024.

With fixed-income investors still recovering from a year that arguably saw nearly every cycle of the market, we look ahead to 2025 across sectors, including sustainability-linked bonds, securitized products and the ongoing effects of inflation and moves by central banks.

Continuous tax-loss harvesting, versus a dedicated year-end process, could potentially generate greater net realized losses. And with modern portfolio-management systems, it can be largely automated as part of a regular rebalancing cadence.

2025 could mark a turning point for sustainable finance, with the EU’s CSRD and global ISSB standards driving transparency. Financial institutions will need to navigate evolving frameworks, balancing compliance challenges with sustainability opportunities.

Could distress trends in leveraged loans offer a glimpse of future distress rates in private-credit senior loans? We chart the path for these loans, and private-credit mezzanine debt, since interest rates began to surge. 

Given real-estate assets’ increasing exposure to coastal, fluvial and pluvial flooding, it’s essential to understand the potential asset- and portfolio-level impacts of all three types. We analyze the exposure of more than 50,000 property assets.   

COP29 advanced international carbon trading with key agreements. Mixed signals on the energy transition, however, affirm investors’ view of an uneven transformation, while investment to address climate-driven physical risk looks likely to continue apace.

When investors assess risk, they construct narratives around the data. Investment managers and asset allocators can look to the long history of market sell-offs for context, to better anticipate future drawdowns and prepare portfolios for what the future may hold. 

This major new report examines the financial impact of CORSIA on airlines, assessing carbon credit demand, supply and prices. Our modeling shows that the cost of CORSIA carbon credits could add up to USD 2 (Phase 1) and USD 5 (Phase II) to average ticket prices.

What do market participants actually think is going to happen to their assets due to climate change? And when do they expect it? And do they think we will ever abandon fossil fuels? Well to answer those questions (and any others!), you need a survey. Luckily, we've got one! We've linked it below and created a podcast episode about it. Enjoy!

Link to the survey

The MSCI Analytics Summit in London brought senior industry experts together to explore the evolving landscape of risk management — what we’ve taken to calling the “future of risk.” Here are the key takeaways from the conference. 

The MSCI Analytics Summit brought together senior industry experts to explore the evolving landscape of risk management. Participants, including our guests for this episode — Rick Bookstaber and Raina Oberoi — exchanged ideas on how to navigate the complex challenges and opportunities in the market, the importance of integrating a risk culture within investment teams and how best to create a role for risk where it can truly serve to aid decision-making and portfolio resilience.

Spreads on corporate mezzanine loans in private-credit funds have fallen dramatically since 2022, changing the picture on the loans that are normally deemed higher-risk than senior loans. Funds treated real-estate borrowers differently, however. 

Mark Carver, Global Head of Equity Factor Products, shares global equity market performance highlights from last quarter and the entire year with changing market landscape.

Energy-hungry data centers are the backbone of AI. And as big tech companies look to meet rising demand for AI capabilities, their emissions are ticking up. So, are net zero ambitions at risk? Or can they be saved by a decades-old energy source in a new guise?

Global carbon-credit investment has surged in recent years with nature-based carbon projects attracting the most funding, driving emission reductions, sustainable development, biodiversity protection and job creation across developing regions. 

“Deconglomeration” in the 1980s signaled a shift to corporate specialization, particularly in the U.S. We found that diversified firms have tended to lag the profitability and growth of their single-industry counterparts.

Historic estimated losses from two recent hurricanes highlight the importance of understanding asset locations that face intensifying climate impacts.