MSCI Inc. may have been more instrumental in changing investor behavior toward Israel than an eight-year-old divestment campaign by some Harvard and MIT academics.
The index provider’s decision to move the country to a developed nations index prompted Harvard University, T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Eaton Vance Corp. to sell a combined $210 million in Israeli stocks from their emerging markets investments last quarter, according to Bloomberg estimates. Funds focusing on mature economies have been slow to buy the shares because Israel accounts for just 0.4 percent of the developed markets index, compared with about 3 percent of MSCI’s emerging markets measure.
“Israeli stocks might be in no-man’s land for a while,” John Derrick, the director of research at San Antonio-based U.S. Global Investors Inc., said in an interview. “It’s small enough in the developed market index to avoid altogether,” said Derrick, whose firm’s Global Emerging Markets Fund sold 9,346 shares of Israel Chemical Ltd. during the second quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
No comments:
Post a Comment