Why choose MSCI Indexes for equity derivatives?
Over the past twenty years, the growth of the derivatives market has demonstrated the rapid adoption and use of equity index futures and options by investors. Likewise, the licensing of structured products is an integral part of this ecosystem.
MSCI’s recent innovation in multi-currency indexes, is designed for institutional investors seeking to replicate MSCI exposure.
The quality of MSCI Indexes is apparent through the quality of index construction and guiding principles of our methodology. MSCI Indexes aim to precisely represent the investable opportunity set. As such, MSCI indexes have been broadly adopted via derivatives licensing at exchanges throughout the world.
Futures on regional indexes capture both the equity market and currency exposures. Investors can replicate the complete performance of a parent index, such as MSCI World or MSCI Emerging Markets Indexes, using a single index, rather than replicate multiple single currency indexes.
In addition to international equity indexes, MSCI also licenses thematic, factor-based, and ESG indexes.
Listed futures and options
A wide variety of financial products are based on or use MSCI indexes, including ETFs, mutual funds, insurance products, structured products, over-the-counter derivatives and listed futures and options.
To demonstrate the quality, widespread use and adoption of MSCI indexes, this document contains a broad list of listed futures and options based on MSCI indexes compiled from public sources.
The exchanges
MSCI based futures and options are currently listed on the following exchanges:
MSCI-licensed inter-dealer brokers
MSCI offers licensing agreements for firms within a client segment commonly known as inter-dealer brokers (IDBs). IDBs act as liquidity aggregators and arrange trades between liquidity providers, typically on an agency basis.
MSCI-licensed IDBs play a critical role in sourcing liquidity of Listed and OTC MSCI-linked derivatives and support the ecosystem of MSCI Indexes as a whole. The following inter-dealer brokers have been licensed to arrange, advise on, and/or execute trades of MSCI index-linked derivatives that reference the closing level of a MSCI Index:
Structured products
With more than 40 years of benchmarking leadership, we have accumulated exceptional expertise in designing and calculating both traditional Market Cap Weighted and alternatively-weighted equity indexes. Investors with unique index requirements can tap into the full scope of our experienced indexing capabilities and extensive data through our Custom Indexes.
Our Indexes can be licensed as underlying of Structured Products ranging from market-cap indexes through Factor Indexes, including diversified and adaptive multi-factor Indexes, a very broad set of Sustainability Indexes, innovative Thematic Indexes and Fixed Income Indexes.
Indexes can be customized across many dimensions for efficient structured products use:
Select Universe | Define Basic Constraints | Define Topic | Advanced Overlay Optimization |
Country | Currency | ESG (including SDGs) | Optimization (e.g. volatility, dividends) |
Region | Liquidity | Factors | Exposure |
Sector | ESG Overlay | Climate Change | Risk Control |
ESG | Weighting Scheme | Economic Exposure | Decrement |
Factors | Number of Constituents | Fundamental Exposure | |
Thematic | Concentration | Fixed Income | |
Rebalance Frequency |
Interested in Index Licensing for Derivatives?
MSCI Indexes Underlying Exchange Traded Products
To demonstrate the quality and widespread use and adoption of MSCI indexes, this page contains a broad list compiled from public sources of listed ETFs, ETNs, futures and options based on MSCI indexes.