Market cap indexes

The MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes (GIMI) Methodology Country Classification:

¹ The MSCI Standalone Market Indexes are not included in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index or MSCI Frontier Markets Index. However, these indexes use either the Emerging Markets or the Frontier Markets methodological criteria concerning size and liquidity.

² The West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) consists of the following countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. Currently the MSCI WAEMU Indexes include securities classified in Benin, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.

Benchmarking the world’s equity markets

Our market cap weighted indexes are among the most respected and widely used benchmarks in the financial industry. Collectively, they provide detailed equity market coverage for more than 80 countries across developed, emerging and frontier markets, representing 99% of these investable opportunity sets. This provides investors with meaningful global views and the flexibility to segment cross-regional comparisons by country, size, sector, and industry and style characteristics for portfolios focused on specific market segments.

All of MSCI’s indexes are created using the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®), an industry classification system developed by MSCI and S&P Global, which provides a common framework to classify stocks. They offer exhaustive coverage of the investable opportunity set with non-overlapping size and style segmentation.

The MSCI China Indexes consist of a range of country, composite and non-domestic indexes for the Chinese market, intended for both international and domestic investors, including Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors (QDII) and Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) licensees. The indexes are calculated according to the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes (GIMI) Methodology.

The MSCI US Equity Indexes are a domestic only series - independent from MSCI’s Global Equity Index suite – which reflect the investment opportunities in the US equity markets by market capitalization size, by value and growth investment styles and by sectors and industries.

The MSCI Voting Rights-Adjusted Indexes specifically include voting rights in the weighting criteria and construction methodology. These indexes have been developed for use by institutional investors seeking equity benchmarks adjusted to reflect voting rights in addition to standard criteria such as size, liquidity and free float. These indexes are designed to adjust the weights of unequal voting structures to reflect differential voting power in addition to the use of free float market capitalization, while continuing to represent the performance of a broad opportunity set.

MSCI Indexes with Fair Value Pricing help fund managers, pension plans and consultants explain the artificial tracking error between a fund’s fair value adjusted NAV and an MSCI index calculated using closing prices. Learn more:

• MSCI Indexes with ITG Fair Value Model
• MSCI Indexes with IDCo Fair Value Pricing