Intro text - Thematic Investing 2023

What is Thematic Investing?

Thematic investing is a top-down investment approach that relies on research to explore macroeconomic, geopolitical and technological trends. These trends encompass long-term, structural shifts arising from new business models, disruptive technologies and changing consumer tastes and behaviors—megatrends that have the potential to change whole industries and shape the way we will live, work, travel and treat disease in the future.

Thematic investing is intentionally future focused around specific emerging trends that are expected to evolve over time. The investment process aims to identify companies that may be well positioned to benefit from these trends and offers an alternative to analyzing companies beyond cycles, region, country or sector.

Our Thematic Indexes offering

Our suite of thematic indexes aims to represent the performance of companies affected by various themes. We have identified four megatrend categories that many believe capture the dynamic forces shaping our future—trends that have the power to transform global economies. These include Environment & Resources; Transformative Technologies; Health & Healthcare; and Society & Lifestyle.


New Index - Thematic Investing 2023

 
NEW

MSCI ACWI IMI Robotics & AI Index

The index aims to represent the performance of a set of companies associated with the increased adoption and utilization of artificial intelligence, robots and automation.

Thematic Insight (PDF, 9 MB)   Factsheet (PDF, 129 KB)   Methodology (PDF, 226 KB)


Interactive Assets


    Thematic Investing - Footnotes

     

    * Developed in collaboration with ARK Invest 
    ** Part of the Circular Economy suite of indexes


    Sub-themes - Thematic Investing 2023

    Sub-themes

    The thematic index objective is captured via subthemes underlying a broad thematic idea. The subthemes are accessed through granular concepts and keywords. To know the complete list of sub-themes covered in our thematic indexes.

    Download brochure (PDF, 317 KB) (opens in a new tab)

    Application - Thematic Investing 2023

    Thematic Investing application

    Unlike traditional, backward-looking investment approaches that focus on ‘past winners’, Thematic Investing reflects a future world that may be very different from the past. Our thematic indexes directly capture themes across a range of subjects using our rules-based methodology.

    To capture these future-forward themes, MSCI has brought together a panel of respected industry experts, our own research team, and our robust, rules-based, structured index construction approach, to support clients seeking to uncover the opportunities these long-term trends may hold. Our thematic index construction is designed to be flexible, scalable and customizable and allow for combinations of multiple themes or sub-themes.

    A wide variety of financial products and services are based on or use MSCI Thematic Indexes. Client license for standard as well as custom versions based on their investment objectives. To find out more, download the list of clients (PDF, 138 KB) (opens in a new tab).


    Our solutions - Thematic Investing 2023

    Our solutions in action

    • Digital Assets

      To meet demand for greater insight and transparency into the digital assets space, MSCI has introduced new Digital Asset Indexes as well as datonomy™, a new digital assets classification system.

    • Thematic Exposure Standard

      MSCI Thematic Exposure Standard is designed to help investors identify, measure, and leverage the emerging, long-term secular trends shaping our future.

    • Circular Economy Indexes

      MSCI’s suite of Circular Economy Indexes offers a new way to think about your portfolio as the transition to a circular economy drives innovation and new business models.


    Collaboration - Thematic Investing 2023

    Collaboration with Industry Experts

    Our culture of collaboration enables us to capitalize on the expertise of third-party domain specialists. By leveraging their specialty knowledge in an advisory capacity, we endeavor to capture nuances of these themes as they evolve. Such insights also enable us to provide investors greater context and deeper insights to better inform your investment decisions.

    • Our Theme Experts

      Thematic Investing requires in-depth research to build a deeper understanding of the underlying drivers of value creation and risk. In addition to our inhouse research, we collaborate with experts on themes to draw on their insights and act as a sounding board. Such expert insights aid in ensuring that we capture themes as they evolve. Their input is advisory only in nature.

    • Our Data Partners

      To develop a wide range of offerings, MSCI recognizes that new thematic indexes require cutting-edge data as inputs, to drive value creation and understanding of risk.


    Featured content - Thematic Investing 2023

    Featured content

    Genomics-driven innovation as a catalyst for growth

    Watch our latest Asset TV video where experts share their views on the innovation in the field of Genomics and how this forward looking theme may provide investors with investment opportunties.

    Indexing change: Understanding MSCI thematic indexes

    Thematic investing has become increasingly popular with institutional and retail investors. We review the concept and how it differs from factor and ESG investment processes. Additionally, we lay out how we model various themes to build a rule-based index methodology representing the performance of companies exposed to a certain trend.


    Research - Thematic Investing 2023

    Research insights

    Drawing Insights from Thematic Exposures

    What impact could natural language processing (NLP) have on equity portfolio management? We explore how firms’ thematic exposures, assembled with an assist from NLP, can bring unique insights to portfolios. 
    PDF, 804 KB
    Innovation Investing and Equity Allocations 

    Investing in companies that seek to capitalize on potential opportunities created by megatrends and innovation-driven themes. 
    No country for old firms? Revisiting growth and thematic investing 

    Thematic equity investing has gained wide traction, but a critique voiced by institutional investors has been its similarity to traditional growth investing. 
    The rise and fall of big tech 

    Big Tech has had an outsized influence on U.S. equity markets and its slide has largely been driven by eight stocks spanning three sectors. 
    Navigating Inflation in Equity Portfolios 

    We investigate the potential of using the stock-level inflation sensitivity to construct hypothetical portfolios aligned with investors’ views on inflation. 
    Inflation Sensitivity and Equity Returns 

    In this blog post, we focus on equities and what rising inflation means for different portfolios and investment strategies. 

    Contact - Thematic Investing 2023

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