With the growth of international investing, the impact of currency movements continues to be of significance. All investors are exposed to currency risk when investing in equities abroad and adverse moves in exchange rates can dramatically impact their performance. Hedging currency exposure is one technique for taking currency risk out of the equation when investing in foreign companies. The MSCI Hedged Indices provide one way to measure the performance of currency hedged equities. Here we...

There is a continuing trend for investors to reduce their home bias in equity allocation and increase the allocation to international equities. An important consideration in move towards global investing is the impact of currencies. An adverse movement in the exchange rate can dramatically change the performance of an international investment. In this research bulletin we review the performance of currencies, both in nominal and real terms, compare domestic and international equity returns...

MSCI Value Weighted Indices are systematic indices that aim to reflect the value premium by employing an alternative weighting scheme that tilts the index towards stocks with lower valuation ratios. In this paper, we review the theoretical aspects of value weighted indices and through empirical studies we discuss the important facets of index construction that underpin the design of MSCI Value Weighted Indices. They are based on an objective and transparent methodology by which all the...

The global credit crunch has led to high levels of equity market volatility. Financial services companies have been particularly affected, with some large financial institutions failing and others seeing their market capitalization shrink rapidly.  The MSCI Global Islamic Indices, however, do not contain constituents from the financial sector unless they meet the requirements in the MSCI Islamic Index Series Methodology.  In this research note we examine the performance and risk...

MSCI Barra is proud to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. To celebrate this important anniversary, we are pleased to bring you this publication which attempts to illustrate how investing in emerging markets has evolved over the last 20 years.

In April 2008 MSCI Barra launched the MSCI World Minimum Volatility Index to serve as a transparent and relevant benchmark for managed volatility equity strategies. As the markets have become more volatile over the last year we explore the behavior of the MSCI World Minimum Volatility Index to determine if it still provides lower volatility in comparison to the MSCI World Index.