Morgan Stanley Equity Indices

Invest wisely using Morgan Stanley Indices as a benchmark

In the world of financial services, market indices track a group of investment vehicles, usually stocks or bonds, which represent an industry or sector of the economy. The Morgan Stanley equity indices are well-known indices that track US and international stocks.

You will often see the equity indices from Morgan Stanley referred to with the acronym MSCI, which stands for Morgan Stanley Capital International. Morgan Stanley is the majority shareholder of MSCI Barra (Barra joined with MSCI in 2004). In this article, you will learn:

1. The most widely used Morgan Stanley indices and where you can keep abreast of how the indices are performing.

2. Some widely traded ETFs that track Morgan Stanley indices.

3. Mutual funds that recently outperformed the popular Morgan Stanley EAFE index.

 

Keep track of the most commonly followed Morgan Stanley Indices

If you have an interest in investing using composite indices, knowing where to find the definitions for, and performance of, the Morgan Stanley EAFE Index, the Morgan Stanley World Index and other Morgan Stanley equity indices will come in handy.
Try: The MSCI Barra website has information on the popular Morgan Stanley EAFE Index, the Morgan Stanley World Index and other international indices. You can find performance information for these international Morgan Stanley Equity Indices here as well. MSCI Barra also offers domestic equity index products and corresponding performance information for those indices.

Find information on ETFs that strive to mimic or to outperform the returns of Morgan Stanley Indices

If you have a belief that the underlying securities of a Morgan Stanley Equity Index will perform well, one way to take advantage of that upswing is to invest in an ETF that follows that index.
Try: If you have an interest in all ETFs available for Morgan Stanley Indices, Bloomberg has a lookup feature where you put the “symbol," which would be MSCI, and it will list all securities with MSCI in the name. Some specific, well-known ETFs include iShares’ Morgan Stanley EAFE Index fund, Lyxor’s ETF MSCI World and State Street Global Advisers’ SPDR MSCI ASCI ex-US ETF. Some general providers of Morgan Stanley equity indices ETFs include iShares international ETFs and Lyxor’s complete range of ETFs.

Investigate mutual funds that have recently outperformed the Morgan Stanley EAFE

The MSCI EAFE is a commonly used benchmark for international equity mutual funds.
Try: The following international mutual funds have outperformed the Morgan Stanley EAFE in recent years: Fidelity Diversified International Fund, Oakmark International Small Cap Fund and Janus Overseas fund.

 

• Most financial advisers agree that international investing should only be a portion of your overall investment portfolio. If you are not sure of what portion of your portfolio to invest in ETFs or mutual funds that track one of Morgan Stanley equity indices, you should seek advice from a financial professional.

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