As the link between biodiversity and climate change becomes increasingly apparent, companies with operations or assets in biodiversity-rich areas may find themselves under growing scrutiny. We assessed companies in APAC to identify where the risks lay.  

Food, beverage and food-retail companies have often been exempted from emissions-reduction schemes, but that may change soon. And if it does, investors might need to assess a new set of risks for these companies, such as carbon tax. 

As extreme weather events become more prevalent, the utilities sector is on the front lines. From investing in microgrids to burying transmission lines, there are ways to help climate-proof infrastructure. But funding is key, and it looks like the green bond market is a good a place to start.

Householding applies one target asset allocation across all family assets and manages them holistically for the highest practicable after-tax return. We compare the outcomes of two use cases for householding vs. a single-portfolio approach. 

Green-bond issuance in the MENA region has expanded rapidly in recent years. How does the use of proceeds compare to global green-bond issuers and who’s leading on the credibility front? 

In 2015, the UN launched its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to drive large-scale, positive environmental and societal impact. We mapped these SDGs to four broad themes — environment, society, economy and governance — to analyze corporate alignment patterns.

Visibility on the use of subscription lines of credit is of key importance to limited partners in private funds. We examined a selection of real-estate, venture-capital and buyout funds to note some key differences between and within private-capital strategies. 

If the world is to scale up solar and wind energy use, grid-scale battery storage demand will need to increase significantly. To be successful, battery companies will need to manage several sources of risk, from resource constraints to operational hurdles. 

We are on the ground at COP 28!! Right now, in the UAE, most of the world’s power brokers are gathered to talk about the climate emergency, the world’s plans for lowering emissions, and everything in between. For this episode, we interviewed our Global Head of Climate Research, Oliver Marchand, who is at COP 28: meeting folks and having talks. He told us what he has been seeing and how he thinks the talks are proceeding.

Understanding ESG risks and opportunities from the perspective of investors could be invaluable for issuers. We examine how investors think about ESG factors and how they incorporate them into their investment processes. 

As more emerging-market countries consider launching emissions trading schemes, we examine how effective they could be in helping to track corporate emissions reduction progress and analyze the effect on country-level emissions trends. 

Insurance costs as a share of income have doubled in the last five years, adding another challenge for property investors. We examine the trend and the variation across U.S. states.

When it comes to climate investing in private equity, there’s more to negative screening than simple sector-wide exclusions. Our analysis underscores the value that incorporating carbon-based solutions can have on carbon footprint at the portfolio level. 

Would adding a Magnificent 7 factor have improved an equity factor model’s performance in the concentrated U.S. equity markets of the last few years? Our analysis shows that the model’s risk-forecast accuracy would not have materially increased.  

Assessing the carbon footprint of their lending and investment activities is crucial for banks to achieve stated net-zero targets. Using a fictious bank’s balance sheet, we show how MSCI Total Portfolio Footprinting can help calculate financed emissions.

We look deep into these indexes to determine what’s led to their showing characteristics, such as duration, spread and yield, similar to those of the parent index, as well as similar risk-adjusted performance.

In response to deglobalization, multinational corporations are making changes to their logistics networks. Using MSCI Economic Exposure data, we examine how small-cap stocks around the world may be impacted. 

Listen in on an in-depth discussion about the growing demand for and personalized tax-efficient strategies from wealth-management clients — driven by technological revolution and the coming, intergenerational transfer of wealth.

Attendees at the recent MSCI Canadian Institutional Investor Forum discussed and debated the challenges and opportunities created by massive structural, macroeconomic, societal and technological shifts in the investment landscape.

The development of corporate sustainability disclosure frameworks is well underway in APAC, but the absence of standardized and harmonized frameworks may result in misaligned disclosures across markets, posing challenges for companies and investors. 

Certain industries are more susceptible to the effects of deglobalization. We explore how investors can identify potential beneficiaries of global supply-chain realignment considering industry, thematic and structural characteristics.

Across regions — U.S., international and emerging markets — small-cap stocks have displayed higher cross-sectional volatility than other market-cap segments. Small caps’ wide dispersion indicates potentially fruitful stock-selection opportunities.

Corporate decarbonization targets without capital commitments can lack credibility, and issuers of labeled corporate bonds led other bond issuers on climate targets. But just how well did these issuers perform in our assessment? 

In a time of volatile fixed-income markets, how well did the MSCI Investment Grade Corporate Bond Indexes perform in terms of meeting their climate objectives?  

We’re thirsty, y’all! In a year, we drink 350 billion liters of bottled water, most of it from plastic. But it’s a product with a hefty environmental footprint, and big climate risks.  We take a look at what might lie ahead for companies and investors.

China’s large share of emerging-market (EM) equities and its falling correlations with EM are leading some investors to allocate separately to the two universes. A tactical overlay of futures and swaps could be used to adjust regional exposures. 

Richard Hill of Cohen & Steers joins MSCI’s Jim Costello to discuss the changing perceptions of the commercial-property market, from dull and boring to dynamic and complex — and the current set of risks and potential opportunities.

How impactful will the coming wave of U.S. property-loan refinancing be? Two significant shifts have characterized the real-estate debt market over the past 18 months: a drop in property values and a corresponding change in the availability of debt financing. 

The China A shares market has grown rapidly, along with the number of small-cap stocks. We compare a market-cap-coverage approach to index construction vs. a fixed-number approach and find the former more consistently captured small-size exposure. 

Some say oil demand is soon to peak. Well, if that is true, why are some oil and gas producers growing their reserves? If there is uncertainty on how oil will perform in the future, how are oil and gas companies positioning themselves amid an ambiguous low-carbon transition? We try to answer these questions on this episode of ESG now.

Hear Andy Sparks, Managing Director and Head of Portfolio Management Research, at MSCI, discuss this and more in the quarterly Fixed Income Markets in Focus.

Key insights from the recent MSCI Institutional Investor Forum highlight how forces of disruption are driving asset owners to evolve their assessment of risks and how developments in AI can further blend quantitative and qualitative investment analysis.

We examine how value investing could be implemented in a passive portfolio, using three generations of value indexes as a starting point for creating investment vehicles: traditional value, value- or fundamentally weighted and high-exposure value.

The EU’s proposed CSDDD could substantially up the stakes in human-rights law for companies and investors. Our research found that many of those in scope for CSDDD fell short on baseline practices to prevent human rights abuses. 

The concept of tax alpha can help a wealth manager explain a client’s after-tax performance. We propose two frameworks to provide transparency around the after-tax attribution calculation used to measure tax alpha.

You trust a retail store to be convenient. You can walk in and get basically anything you need - be it food, clothes, face wash, batteries...whatever. Retail companies have built their brands on that convenience and affordability factor. But would you trust a retail company to be your healthcare provider? Well, they are betting on that - Amazon, Walmart, and others are getting into the healthcare game. And in this episode, we discuss what it might look like to have an Amazon employee administer a flu test.

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.

For many real-estate investors, property-type and geography segmentations are the primary lens through which they measure and manage their portfolios. But could real-estate style factors play a role in helping investors manage their portfolios more systematically? 

Measuring financed emissions is crucial for climate disclosure, but not always straightforward. Proper data alignment and timeliness are essential to help investors make informed decisions and contribute to effective climate action.

This week, we are returning to five stories we have already covered to see what progress has been made (if any!): The Adani Group and its attempt to address a short seller report that questioned the group’s governance that led to a massive loss in market share; the United Auto Workers strikes and the continued struggle in the auto industry; the Inflation Reduction Act and the trillions of dollars of capital is supports; what the EPA’s methane rule has done for the gas industry in the US; and how Exxon has changed after having three seats of its 12 member board taken by over by Engine No. 1, an activist investor worried about carbon emissions.

High-net-worth investors are seeking portfolios tailored to their financial goals, personal values and tax situation. Wealth managers need scalable solutions. We explore using factor, thematic and sustainable investing to customize portfolios.    

Drawing on 35 years of data, we show that the fundamental characteristics of the MSCI Minimum Volatility Indexes have remained consistent with the expected behavior of the low-volatility factor — to perform well in turbulent markets.

We highlight key characteristics of the Singapore equity market and analyze the impact of foreign-listed securities in the MSCI Singapore Free Index. Investors may consider managing Singapore equity exposure using futures linked to the index. 

Good emissions data is essential for any detailed sovereign-bond climate analysis. In this paper, we address some key questions around how best to quantify sovereign bonds’ financed emissions and climate-transition risk.

Real yields in many countries have surged to their highest levels in a decade. But while high real yields might offer potential opportunities for investors, it is important to recognize the risks. 

Unusually low small-cap valuations have prompted a role reversal between small caps and their larger-cap peers. Since 2021, they have had a lower forward P/E than large caps and, based on P/B, been consistently cheaper than the cheapest larger caps. 

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded on Monday to Claudia Goldin, a Harvard professor, for her work to advance the world’s understanding of women in the work force. She made history by being the first woman to win the award solo rather than sharing in the prize. To honor her achievement, we discussed our own gender pay gap research that is in part informed by academics like Dr. Goldin, focusing on a new regulation in Japan that mandated companies disclose their pay gap data. And then, after we go through the numbers, we have a special part of this episode where colleagues come on to share their experiences of work before and after motherhood.

Our quarterly roundtable examines markets, and market-moving events to help institutional investors as they determine the best way forward; across asset classes and parsing out differences between developed and emerging markets.

We explore the methodologies behind the MSCI ESG Indexes to see how they integrate ESG considerations. We also assess the differences of these approaches in terms of the financial and ESG characteristics to understand potential trade-offs. 

With Governor Newsom poised to sign two new climate reporting bills into law, we look at what’s in them, why they matter, and why everyone is suddenly making a fuss about Scope 3 emissions.

Direct indexing and ETFs can both play a part in designing a tax-efficient investment strategy. We compare those roles in a U.S.-domiciled portfolio.  

How could higher global rates for longer than expected affect a global portfolio of equities, bonds and real estate? In our new quarterly series, Macro Scenarios in Focus, we consider four potential paths for the global economy and conduct a portfolio stress test.

Demand for office properties has been in flux. One trend that has accelerated since the onset of the pandemic is the lean toward buildings with smaller floorplates (the leasable area per floor). We examine the patterns of investment.

Eclipsing equity and bond yields and high crowding may be signs of a vulnerable equity market. We compare equity/bond yield spreads in the major regional markets along with crowding in sectors and regions.  

Two measures of concentration risk indicate historically low levels for small-cap stocks in contrast to the higher levels of their large-cap counterparts.

The share of the U.S. commercial-mortgage market captured by regional and local banks tumbled in Q2 of 2023, as the high-profile failure of several banks cast a cloud on lending activity. We show the retreat in both market share and in mortgage originations.

Despite growing demand for clean energy, price parity with fossil fuels and friendly policies, renewable energy companies are facing some tough headwinds. We take a look at why that's happening and what Orsted’s no good, very bad August can tell us about the rest of the industry.

Selling a capital asset at a loss to reduce your tax liability is one side of the coin. The other side is thoughtfully selecting the security that replaces it.   

The launch of the MSCI Sustainability Institute, founded and led by Linda-Eling Lee was attended by some of the most highly respected members of the ESG-investment community. We explore the institute’s aims and how it will work with investors, companies, academics and policymakers to drive action by capital markets.

The cost of hedging downside equity exposure has fallen substantially versus eight months ago, markedly lowering the price of insurance against rising equity volatility.

Although the EU Taxonomy is a pivotal framework for assessing sustainability in economic activities, it remains a source of confusion. Its correct interpretation will be key to ensure that data is properly disclosed and reporting obligations met.

Although corporate disclosures around biodiversity- and nature-related risk vary, with growing stakeholder awareness and initiatives such as the TNFD framework, we may see a move toward more standardized disclosures that could help investors better assess these risks.

We analyze the index-level carbon emissions of the MSCI ACWI, ACWI ESG and Socially Responsible Investing Indexes, in terms of both financed emissions and emissions intensities, to see what the trends are and what’s driving them.

The demands made by the United Auto Workers (UAW) to the big three auto companies in the US are varied and touch on every part of ESG. But what may loom largest is the ongoing transition to electric vehicles that will change how a massive industry operates and employs its millions of workers. We discussed what the strikes mean for the future of the auto industry, and why the UAW is fighting an uphill battle as its industry changes.

Over the last several years, most active growth managers underweighted the “Magnificent Seven.” Nearly two-thirds of growth managers, however, partially or more than offset the resulting performance drag with active bets on other stocks.

Investors do not like to realize losses. We examine the link between this loss aversion — an observed phenomenon in commercial-property markets — and a drop in liquidity in key markets around the globe. 

Biodiversity is the new kid on the block in sustainable investing, and a lack of harmonization makes it a jungle out there. We assessed how biodiversity-labeled and biodiversity-related funds differed in sector and revenue exposure and performance. 

As the urgency of addressing climate change continues to grow, investor engagement could be key to holding companies accountable for their environmental impact and influencing corporate climate strategies and net-zero commitments. 

With a very strong likelihood of an El Niño event forming by the end of 2023, we take a look at the impact such events have had in the past on the debt-to-GDP ratios of global sovereigns and what this could mean for impact investors.  

Office vacancy has reached a record high for properties in central business districts. Forms of compensation to attract people back to offices could include improved mass transit and reduced travel time.  

We have likely entered in to an El Nino season as of June 2023. El Nino forms and then eventually dissipates as trade winds that blow to the south of the equator shift and impact the flow of the ocean below them. This means the world gets hotter, even hotter than the record heat we have already seen (which is tough to hear). In this episode, we discuss what that sort of warming will likely do to global crop yields and the debt levels of the world’s economies.

Multinational corporations’ recent interest in reconfiguring their global supply chains and adopting “China-plus” manufacturing strategies has potential consequences for equity allocators, reaching across countries, sectors and themes.   

A bond portfolio generates cash flows over time that include coupon payments and the face value of matured bonds, assuming no defaults. With controlled and systematic reinvestment of this cash flow, investors can gradually decarbonize their portfolios on a glidepath.

Cities that ride booms and busts in commodity prices have in the past achieved strong outperformance in commercial-property returns during booms. Has the recent surge in commodity prices had a similar impact on returns? 

Amid the growing usage of sub lines across private capital funds, we explore how intensively funds draw on their sub lines — a critical determinant of how sub lines will affect internal rates of return.

With fashion brands now producing 52 “micro seasons” a year, more and more clothing is being unsold or discarded. And recycling clothing is more difficult than you may think. As the EU looks to increase accountability for post-consumer waste, we take a look at what it could mean for clothing companies and their investors.

The EU has set up a number of regulations to define what is and is not sustainable. Part of those regulations touch investment funds as most assets under management in Europe (~EUR 7 trillion out of EUR 12 trillion) are invested in ESG funds or strategies with some sustainability-related focus. Is this episode we look at what the effect of these defining regulations has been on the fund investment landscape in Europe, and whether the EU has been successful in its intent. 

We assess the latest trends in labeled bonds, from the overall market to specific bond and issuer characteristics, to identify key developments in the rapidly growing and increasingly diverse labeled-bond market. 

Noting the parallel between today’s technology- and AI-driven concentrated rally and the late 1990s’ technology boom, we examined factor performance and factors’ over- and underweights in the top 10 MSCI USA Index constituents over both periods. 

The risk-on market rally continued in July amid several indicators of frothiness as beta and residual volatility posted the highest factor returns in the U.S. by a wide margin and were also strong globally.

Artificial intelligence is rolling out in a big way across different industries and sectors. With much to lose and much to gain from this new trend, investors will be looking to boards that ask good questions and get good answers – even if that means letting AI into the boardroom.

We sat down with MSCI’s global head of research for a wide-ranging discussion, including why he chose to return to the company now, the challenges and opportunities facing the investment industry and a unique take on risk management, ESG and climate and AI and technology. 

Beyond the symbolic nature of being the first to land on the moon's south pole, this feat underscores India's shift towards technology-driven innovation and could mark an expanding global role and increasing prominence in global equity portfolios. 

Worries about artificial intelligence supplanting knowledge workers have created more pain for the office market but a broader view of the impact on commercial real estate is vital. 

Inflation appears to have peaked at the end of 2022, but it remains influential in capital markets. We analyzed nearly 50 years of data to assess how small caps’ performance has changed with shifts in both the level and trend of inflation.  

Climate stress-testing models like MSCI Climate VaR may be complex, but their main mechanisms can be explained using linear regression. This helps transform input variables into risk outputs, making it easier for investors to understand the primary drivers.