MSCI has launched the MSCI EM Beyond BRIC Index, a new subset of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.
The new index comprises seventeen countries and excludes the ‘BRIC’ economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which currently represent around 40% of the wider emerging markets index. MSCI said the new index offered a way to ‘track and evaluate the emerging markets opportunity set for those wishing to invest in countries outside the BRIC region’.
The index is market cap weighted, but the weighting towards the larger markets of Korea, South Africa and Taiwan is capped on a quarterly basis at 15% to ensure greater diversification. This gives greater prominence to smaller emerging market countries.
As it stands, after Korea, South Africa and Taiwan, the largest weightings in the index will be towards Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Chile, Columbia, the Philippines, Turkey and Poland all have a weighting in excess of 2%.