MSCI Inc. (Morgan Stanley Capital International)
It is a research investment firm with expertise in technology and data, ESG initiatives, and real estate indexes that provide clients with portfolio enhancements on a global scale.
What Is Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI)?
Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) is a research investment firm with expertise in technology and data, ESG initiatives, and real estate indexes that provide clients with portfolio enhancements on a global scale.
In research development on investment strategies, the investment firm generates its market analysis to help clients make smarter investment decisions through diverse services.
To provide the best services, industry professionals develop research findings to help clients determine important factors such as risk factors and solutions to global investments.
These financial services are guided to increase investment growth for clients worldwide, much of which the client base consists of asset managers, banks, wealth managers, and insurance companies, to name a few.
On top of that, Morgan Stanley Capital International has gained worldwide recognition for its business and services. With over thirty award recognitions, the firm has won 16 various category awards from RiskTech100, a Chartis research award for market and technology.
Another important aspect of the firm is its high regard for implementing renewable solutions. Six ESG and sustainable finance awards have been awarded as a sustainable-driven firm for providing the best resources for research in sustainable investments and decisions.
Key Takeaways
- MSCI provides financial services with goals of long-term investment growth
- Technology is a key player in creating market analysis, financial models, and solutions.
- MSCI offers resources for investors to strengthen their knowledge of a mix of market trends and make better investing decisions
- Take charge of your money and learn to manage your money and investments with one of our many financial courses.
Morgan Stanley Capital International: What are the influences of technology?
In a continuously evolving world where technology quickly adapts to everyday life, technology, and data use are important to navigating top-performing indexes to clients across the globe.
As the financial industry advances its services and researches trending market analysis, technology becomes useful in providing clients with the most accurate investment strategies.
Due to individual investment needs, technology can allow clients to access industry reports, gain exposure to different investment strategies, and understand the risk and return of global investments.
Among the popular investment strategies like factor investing, ESG investing, value investing, and dividend investing, clients can apply the given resources to diversify their portfolios in new ways. With the multitude of services, technology offers diversification options for all portfolios.
Through the developments of technology, information and research-based findings are available in quicker and simpler ways. A few resources are offered if you want to increase your understanding of global investments or include various indexes in your portfolio.
One of the technological developments from the financial firm includes the Integration of software as a service. The integration software comprises four data-enhancing tools to perform better in investment decision-making, which are discussed in further detail below.
ISaaS
Integration software as a service (ISaaS) works to develop financial models, present research-based data findings, and compare market trends across the globe. The e-solutions target market investment challenges, risks, and opportunities to help clients in their portfolios.
Through the four main ISaaS tools, all part of MSCI, the Climate Lab, Data Explorer, Developer Community, and Index Builder, researchers can analyze a wealth of information to determine the best investment strategies and future outlooks of international investments.
Also, in partnership with Microsoft Azure Cloud, ISaaS was developed to build impactful investing decisions and financial services. Around the world, sustainable investing is becoming increasingly powerful in expanding investment portfolios.
However, every individual need is different, so ISaaS was designed to apply investment services to a blend of topics.
1. Climate Lab
The Climate Lab is used to analyze a few factors that mainly impact investment managers' clients.
Factors include:
- Comparing company emissions and performance
- Researching ESG initiatives and progress
- Understanding physical climate impacts and financial risks of climate-centered investments
2. Data Explorer
The Data Explorer can process its findings to build personalized datasets connected to the Climate Lab. In addition, the Data Explorer allows researchers the tools to build investment portfolios from its reliable financial databases successfully.
The data system allows investors to obtain the following:
- Lists of accessible datasets exceeding 200 sources
- Decades worth of information regarding factor investing
- Access to use and store in Data Explorer cloud data
3. Developer Community
The Developer Community aims to excel in the market research process using Application Programming Interfaces (API). After gathering the datasets of comparables and investment impacts, the programming and index experimentation begins.
A couple of advantages of using the application include the following:
- Developing case studies featuring ESG, real estate, and fixed-income factors
- Building programming habits to incorporate into projects
4. Index Builder
Lastly, the final stages of the ISaaS tool are used to finalize the individual portfolio. To deliver long-term investment strategies, the Index Builder offers its top three design, analysis, and licensing strategies.
Asset owners and investment managers can use Index Builder to:
- Design your personalized investment portfolio with indexes dedicated to your goals
- Analyze how each index compares to risk, exposure, and long-term results
- License your personalized index and provide resources to the market
MSCI And Professional Insight
Additionally, the firm's values are constantly influenced by the development of financial and technological services. Going into depth, industry professionals provide insight into risk and return and the importance of putting clients at the forefront of values.
Etienne Mazel, the Head of Model Engineering, and Cloud Force, a Program Manager of Analytics, identify the connections between the advancements of technology with risk and return.
Speaking on putting clients first, Joey Vallejo, the Head of UX Design, and Shiva Neiman, Lead UX Designer, share their insights on UX Design and building a better future for its clients.
In preview, Etienne Mazel emphasizes that the purpose of analytical tools is to provide investors and clients the resources they need to create top-performing investments.
MSCI analytics assist clients in gauging ongoing market trends and the performance of risk and return of indexes.
To provide the highest quality of data delivery and help clients build investment portfolios tailored toward their needs, the company has partnered with Microsoft to distribute data effectively across various sources.
As Cloud Force mentions, MSCI provides its highest form of technology for its clients to receive the solutions to every investment goal.
At the core of every successful business, client relationships are crucial in building customer loyalty. That is why MSCI prides itself on establishing tightly bonded relationships to gain feedback and insight from its clients on the technological advances the company provides.
To help reach clients’ investment goals and offer long-term solutions, Joey Vallejo reveals that client engagement and input allow the company to determine technological advances and new strategies that can bring about specific investment solutions.
What investment solutions are provided at MSCI?
As one of the driving factors of client loyalty and high-ranking industry service, providing investment solutions is key to achieving long-term investment goals for both the client and the firm.
Currently, MSCI provides a list of solutions that are beneficial to strengthening each investment portfolio or even to benefit your understanding of market trends. However, if you want to narrow down one area of interest or diversify your portfolio, MSCI has laid out the necessary research.
The list of solutions addresses the following topics:
- Analytics
- Climate
- Environmental, social, and governance
- Factor
- Indexes
- Real Estate
Each investment topic varies in solutions, but overall the solutions cover issues concerning indexes, funding, and specific analytics related to each topic. Also featured in the list of topics are future outlooks, tracking climate goals, and financial models.
In this article, two investment solutions will be discussed further. The environmental, social, and governance solutions provide a deeper understanding of impact investing and how sustainability and finance go hand-in-hand in making better investing decisions.
Real estate is the second topic of discussion regarding investment solutions. As mentioned earlier, MSCI’s pioneering technology offers solutions to many topics. Real estate solutions provide investors with property and investment risk information on a global outlook.
MSCI And ESG
As one of the highest priorities of MSCI, ESG offers sustainable solutions to investment strategies. ESG is the environmental, social, and governance of a firm’s corporate responsibilities regarding investments and financials.
To indicate the degree of influence in ESG matters, ratings are made on a scale of AAA - CCC. A rating above an A is considered the most risk-averse company that proactively entertains sustainable investing compared to the average (BBB) or below average (CCC) ratings.
In MSCI terms, companies earning an AAA or AA rating are considered the leading companies in ESG initiatives and risk and return.
A rating of A, BBB, or BB is a company with an average score for progressively implementing ESG opportunities but lacks governance in other areas.
Lastly, poorly rated companies are rated either a B or CCC. Companies with lower ratings have an absence of ESG duties and cannot advance their risk and return investments.
Not all company goals are alike, which is why MSCI looks at several factors that influence ratings:
- What is the company’s goal in the specified industry?
- What type of transactions are dealt with, and how is ESG involved?
- Where do business operations take place?
- How do they compare to their competitors?
Impact solutions are crucial to ensure that ESG strategies are being met. In addition, impact solutions offer investors the resources to measure their portfolio impact.
With over 10,000 companies on file, MSCI databases measure the social and environmental impacts. The main aspect of metric measurements is to determine the ratio of incoming revenue to ESG impacts.
A few social impact metrics to look out for include:
- Medical treatment
- Affordable housing
- Education
Environmental impact metrics include:
- Green buildings
- Reusable energy
- Sustainable agriculture
To help with the metric measurements, companies are given an annual report to fill out, which discloses the ESG impact of the services or products of the company.
MSCI can determine the extent of impact contribution of a company through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) evaluation. As a guiding principle for impact solutions, SDG evaluates a company’s services, policies, and operations from the annual impact reports.
MSCI and Real Estate
Another primary focus for solution-driven investments in real estate and its global intel. From a collection of data from 32 countries, the Real Estate Global Intel ranks as one of the top databases in the world covering private real estate.
Globally, the company’s global intel helps clients discover comparisons of private real estate assets worldwide. As a result, clients can gain international property knowledge to help leverage each specific investment goal.
Wherever you are looking for real estate assets, MSCI has over 1,000 cities of private real estate covered by global intel.
The Real Estate Global Intel is specialized to help clients easily navigate specific real estate assets and narrow geographical searches to their interests. As designed for investors, the database is personalized for market trends and comparisons worldwide.
In addition to the global real estate database, investors must be cautious of the risks of investing in private real estate. Risks can come with any investment, so MSCI devised a solution to help investors assess the chances of failed tenancy and its risk outcomes.
ICANS, an income analytics tool, can use its global data advances to determine the grading system of tenants and the risk expectancy of real estate assets.
A couple of main features of the income analytics tool are:
- Current and subsequent property analysis
- Global comparisons of single bond ratings
Putting the solution to the test, risk management utilizes an effective tool to measure risk results and the effects of possible failure of the tenancy. The determinants of real estate assets help risk management quickly regulate their investment strategies.
Similarly, ICANS allows investor relations to track the risks of investments and determine areas of strengths or weaknesses.
How can you enhance your portfolio?
Suppose you are curious to learn more or are ready to enhance your investment portfolio. In that case, MSCI provides a diverse, international set of indexes and market trends to inform your decisions better.
On a global scale, research topics are offered in various locations, and depending on your interests, there are over 30 countries to invest in. In addition, market analysis and economic trends are a few resources offered in consideration of personalized investment strategies.
More specifically to the indexes provided, additional research topics to consider analyzing to stay up-to-date with market trends include:
- Equities
- Factor Investing
- Fixed Income
- Multi-asset Class
On top of the research resources, investors can attend events either online or in person. MSCI hosts a list of webinars, workshops, and industry-related programs for investors worldwide to attend.
The educational and network-enhancing events help investors make specific investment decisions that cover economic influences and up-to-date market trends.
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