MSCI Inc. is an American finance company headquartered in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. MSCI is a global provider of

equity Equity may refer to: Finance, accounting and ownership * Equity (finance), ownership of assets that have liabilities attached to them ** Stock, equity based on original contributions of cash or other value to a business ** Home equity, the dif ...

fixed income Fixed income refers to any type of investment under which the borrower or issuer is obliged to make payments of a fixed amount on a fixed schedule. For example, the borrower may have to pay interest at a fixed rate once a year and repay the prin ...

, real estate indexes, multi-asset

portfolio analysis Modern portfolio theory (MPT), or mean-variance analysis, is a mathematical framework for assembling a portfolio of assets such that the expected return is maximized for a given level of risk. It is a formalization and extension of diversificatio ...

tools,

ESG ESG may refer to : Groups * Election Support Group, an internationally sponsored organization analyzing and supporting the electoral process in Pakistan * ES Guelma, an Algerian football club based in Guelma * Escuela Superior de Guerra (Argenti ...

and

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...

products. It operates the MSCI World, MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI), MSCI Emerging Markets Indexes. The company is headquartered at

7 World Trade Center 7 World Trade Center (7 WTC, WTC-7, or Tower 7) refers to two buildings that have existed at the same location within the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The original structure, part of the original World Trade Cent ...

Manhattan, New York City Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...

, U.S.

History

In 1968, Capital International published indexes covering the global stock market for non-U.S. markets. In 1986,

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

licensed the rights to the indexes from Capital International and branded the indexes as the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) indexes. By the 1980s, the MSCI indexes were the primary benchmark indexes outside of the U.S. before being joined by FTSE,

Citibank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City ...

, and

Standard & Poor's S&P Global Ratings (previously Standard & Poor's and informally known as S&P) is an American credit rating agency (CRA) and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is con ...

. After

Dow Jones Dow Jones is a combination of the names of business partners Charles Dow and Edward Jones. Dow Jones & Company Dow, Jones and Charles Bergstresser founded Dow Jones & Company in 1882. That company eventually became a subsidiary of News Corp, and ...

started float weighting its index funds, MSCI followed. In 2004, MSCI acquired Barra, Inc., to form MSCI Barra. In mid-2007, parent company Morgan Stanley decided to divest MSCI. This was followed by an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

of a minority of stock in November 2007. The divestment was completed in 2009. The company is headquartered in New York City. Some companies in MSCI's peer group includes Glass Lewis, Factset,

Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute The Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute or SWF Institute, or SWFI, is a global corporation analyzing public asset owners such as sovereign wealth funds and other long-term governmental investors. Initially, the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute focuse ...

, and

Acquisitions

In 2010 MSCI acquired RiskMetrics Group, Inc. and Measurisk. In 2012 MSCI acquired Investment Property Databank. In 2013, MSCI acquired Investor Force from ICG Group (formerly

Internet Capital Group Actua Corporation was a venture capital firm. During the dot com bubble, the company had a market capitalization of over $50 billion. The company was originally known as Internet Capital Group, Inc. and changed its name to Actua Corporation in Se ...

). In August 2014, MSCI acquired GMI Ratings. In October 2019, MSCI acquired Carbon Delta, a Zurich-based climate change analytics company. In September 2021, MSCI acquired Real Capital Analytics.

Collaborations

In October 2021, MSCI and Cboe Global Markets signed a licensing agreement that would see MSCI grow its options product suite and allow them to work on other projects as well. In April 2022, MSCI entered into a collaboration with MarketAxess on fixed income indices, portfolio construction solutions, and ESG data, using MSCI's ESG data and MarketAxess' pricing and liquidity indicators.

Indexes

The MSCI global equity indexes have been calculated since 1969 and include MSCI World and MSCI EAFE. Initially, the company used eight factors in developing its indexes: momentum, volatility, value, size, growth, size nonlinearity, liquidity, and financial leverage.

Inclusion of Chinese stocks

In 2018 MSCI announced it would begin including mainland Chinese "A" shares in its MSCI Emerging Markets Index. Initially the domestic Chinese companies received a 5% weighting in the index. MSCI is the last major index provider to include the companies, but some investors have questioned the risk as many Chinese listed companies refuse to permit the

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is a nonprofit corporation created by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 to oversee the audits of public companies and other issuers in order to protect the interests of investors and further t ...

to inspect their financial records. The action of including Chinese stocks into MSCI EM Index also received criticism and questions from Senator

Marco Rubio Marco Antonio Rubio (born May 28, 1971) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the senior United States senator from Florida, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Speaker of the Florida Hous ...

and some others regarding the U.S. national security. In February 2019, ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' reported the decision was the result of pressure from the Chinese government according to people familiar with the matter. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' reported that "The Chinese government long sought MSCI inclusion because it could help establish Shanghai and Shenzhen as global financial centers." MSCI chief executive and chairman Henry Fernandez stated there was "zero politics" behind the decision. In March 2019,

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

reported that MSCI have a future plan of inclusion based on

market capitalization Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders. Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by t ...

of mainland Chinese shares in its global benchmarks, which will eventually lead to ca. 40% weights of its global emerging markets index. In April 2020, it was reported that

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

was considering an executive action to prohibit the Thrift Savings Plan from transferring $50 billion to mirror the MSCI All Country World Index fund. In December 2020, MSCI announced that it would strip its indexes of seven Chinese companies in response to Executive Order 13959. Although the A share full inclusion plan was noted by investors years ago, it still has not been realized as of . In November 2022, a study by

Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The university is based on two sites; the City Campus is located in the city centre near Sheffield railway station, while the Collegiate Cr ...

and Hong Kong Watch identified three major stock indexes provided by MSCI that include at least 13 companies involved in forced labor and

mass surveillance Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizati ...

Uyghurs The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1968 establishments in New York City 2007 initial public offerings American companies established in 1968 Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Exchange-traded funds Financial services companies based in New York City Financial services companies established in 1968 Morgan Stanley Publicly traded companies based in New York City