A year marked by Brexit and Trump is ending with widespread uncertainty.

The decision by a majority of U.K. voters to leave the European Union shines a light on fissures between perceived winners and losers from globalized markets and highlights for investors the importance of factoring the consequences of inequality and popular discontent into their views. The latest edition of MSCI’s “Scenarios, Stress Tests and Strategies” examines the potential impacts on institutional portfolios of a tide of populist sentiment across Europe and the U.S.

Investors who aim to understand what drives returns over the long run might look to the Land of the Midnight Sun.

Market movements in the first three months of the year reflected wide gyrations in investors’ assumptions about macroeconomic conditions and asset pricing.

The volatility of currency has increased in recent years as a combination of quantitative easing and currency wars fuel swings in the foreign-exchange market.

Call it a lost decade. The value factor recently marked 10 years of decline in the U.S.

The fitfulness of the global recovery has produced quick and unexpected changes in financial markets and handed portfolio managers the challenge of allocating assets amid the market stress.

Heading into 2016, MSCI examined 12 stress points globally to be used in quantifying the effect on portfolios of a range of shifts in markets, liquidity and the macroeconomy. These stress points include the prospect of additional interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, weakness in the eurozone and a deceleration in Chinese economic growth.

If 2015 market volatility frayed investor nerves, 2016 might be even more of a nail-biter. MSCI identified 12 stress points globally to be used in quantifying the effect on portfolios of a range of shifts in markets, liquidity and the macroeconomy.

As companies expand their footprint globally, the geographic distribution of their revenues evolves over time and their economic exposures may diverge from their country of domicile and primary listing. We believe that this raises a critical issue for institutional investors.

Interest in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) mandates has grown considerably over the past few years, but some institutional investors remain concerned that inclusion of ESG factors may come at the cost of weaker risk-adjusted returns. Our research shows that this is not necessarily the case.

Maintaining a “home bias” in the equity portfolio may come with huge opportunity costs. In a 2012 study MSCI prepared for Norway’s Ministry of Finance, we examined...

Winner of the 2015 IRRC Institute Investor Research Award for best practitioner paper. Approaches based on divesting certain sectors effectively can help asset owners communicate their concerns about the risks of climate change to stakeholders. However, they ignore short-term benchmark risk. Further, a focus on divesting reserves disregards fixed assets that are at risk of losing value because they depend on burning fossil fuel reserves. This paper provides a framework for evaluating ways to...

This paper discusses the rationale for factor investing and how indexe can be constructed to reflect factor returns in cost-effective and transparent ways. We currently identify six equity risk factors that have historically earned a long-term risk premium and represent exposure to systematic sources of risk: Value, Low Size, Low Volatility, High Yield, Quality and Momentum.