MSCI EAFE
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The MSCI EAFE is a stock market index of 'foreign' stocks, from the perspective of a North American investor. The index is market capitalization weighted (meaning that the weight of securities is determined based on their respective market capitalizations.) The index targets coverage of 85% of the market capitalization of the equity market of all countries that are a part of the index. It is maintained by Morgan Stanley Capital International; the EAFE acronym stands for "Europe, Australasia, and Far East".
The index includes a selection of stocks from 21 developed markets, but excludes those from the U.S. and Canada. The index has been calculated since 31 December 1969, making it the oldest truly global stock index. It is probably the most common benchmark for 'foreign' stock funds.
(Of course, in the above, 'foreign' is from the point of view of investors in the United States; there are also "World ex Europe", "World ex Japan", etc., designed for use by investors in other parts of the world looking to invest outside their home country or region.)
[edit] List of countries
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
[edit] External link
- The MSCI EAFE index is the "S&P 500" of foreign stocks- A blog discussion of the MSCI EAFE index.
