Factor Investing

Equity factor investing was pioneered in the 1970s based on the research, data and analytics created by Barra – today part of MSCI.  In recent years, MSCI has developed a broad range of indexes and analytical models that provide institutional investors with tools for evaluating factors and incorporating factor strategies into their portfolios. We are continuing to break new ground in factor research.  A study we conducted for Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund – the largest pension fund in the world – explored ways to use factor strategies alongside traditional active and passive allocations.  We recently introduced a new series of indexes, MSCI Diversified Multi-Factor Indexes, which use Barra risk tools to maintain optimal exposure to a diversified set of factors while keeping risk at the level of an underlying parent index.