Extended-lister
Showing 181 - 190 of 201 entries
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MSCI Blog
Why index funds promote market efficiencyInstitutions and individuals increasingly invest through funds that track indexes. While index funds bring transparency and low cost, their critics claim that they allocate capital indiscriminately, hurting market efficiency. Is this claim supported by the evidence? It is not. Our analysis shows that, far from damaging market efficiency, index funds1 facilitate active portfolio management by offering investors diverse and efficient tools to express investment views and implement active investment decisions.
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MSCI Blog
Winners and Losers of a U.S.-China Trade WarThe question of who wins or loses a U.S.-China trade war has more than two possible answers. While much of the analysis has focused on China’s heavier reliance on exports to the U.S., American companies (and those who invest in them) actually have greater revenue exposure to China than the other way around. In fact, 5.1% of the revenues of companies in the MSCI USA Index come from China and may be at risk as a result of a trade war. In comparison, only 2.8% of the revenues of the companies in the MSCI China Index come from the U.S.
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MSCI Blog
Putting the spotlight on Spotify: Why have stocks with unequal voting rights outperformed?Nearly 15 years after Google’s initial public offering, the debate about listed companies that offer unequal voting rights to outside investors rages on. A number of high-profile technology companies including Dropbox Inc., Spotify and Snap Inc. have recently listed shares with unequal voting rights, adding fuel to the debate. Meanwhile, investors are trying to determine if they should shun the stock issued by these companies or include them in equity portfolios.
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MSCI Blog
Does the market contain too much Facebook?Facebook’s privacy issues, Apple’s European tax woes and Amazon’s global ambitions are constantly in the news. And over the last few years, large U.S. technology companies, sometimes known as FAANG, have made up larger slices of the global equity market. Should their level of market concentration concern investors?
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MSCI Blog
Why are Small Caps Different?A lot has been written about the persistence of the global small-cap premium. But what, apart from size, distinguishes small-cap stocks from their large- and mid-cap counterparts, and how can these distinctions help institutional investors?
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MSCI Blog
Global small-cap fund capacity: no small matterIn recent years, pension funds around the world increasingly have shed their home bias and made global small-cap allocations.
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MSCI Blog
Why global small-cap stocks are becoming an important part of institutional portfoliosInstitutional investors worldwide traditionally have tended to focus on the stocks of larger companies, finding them less risky, more liquid and offering greater investment capacity than small-cap stocks. But asset owners and managers increasingly are allocating strategically to the small-cap equity segment as part of their global equity portfolios i.e., via an “all-cap” approach.
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MSCI Blog
How to Integrate ESG Without Sacrificing DiversificationAs institutional equity investors increasingly think about the long term, they may adjust their portfolios to accommodate environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns in their investment decision-making processes. That can be particularly challenging for the largest investors, such as pension funds and endowments, whose portfolios span the entire equity market.
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MSCI Blog
A Look at MSCI’s Emerging Markets Index and China A-sharesDuring our consultations on whether to add China A-shares to MSCI’s Emerging Markets Index, some institutional investors asked what full inclusion might mean for the index and the asset class. Given China’s already-significant weight in the index, would the addition of shares of local Chinese companies, even if years away, reduce diversification of the index and render the asset class irrelevant?
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MSCI Blog
How Low Interest Rates May Impact your PortfolioSlow growth and a shortage of safe assets have led major central banks to maintain monetary policies that include short-term interest rates near or below zero. The policies, which aim to encourage businesses and consumers to borrow and spend, have lowered bond yields, distorted yield curves, shifted the composition of central banks’ balance sheets toward riskier assets and sent savers in search of yield. The persistence of low growth and a lack of inflation also have led investors to wonder whether such policies still pack any punch.