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Morgan Stanley index to take in India

There are signs of recovery of capital market indices in the emerging markets of Asia during the month of September as the Morgan Stanley Capital International's Emerging Markets Index finished the month higher by 6.1 per cent.

The best performing emerging market region was Latin America rising 9.9 per cent while eastern Europe posted the largest loss of 11 per cent. Overall, the 48-country MSCI World Index free combining developed and emerging markets rose 1.8 per cent in September.

John Fildes, head of MSCI (Asia) said in Bombay on Thursday that there were some realignments in the weightage factors given to various emerging markets considering risks distorting regional and composite indices.

Malaysia has been dropped out and India may be given some more weightage in the MSCI EMI, he said.

For the third quarter of 1998, the EMI fell by 22.9 per cent with eastern Europe down by 48 per cent. Pakistan was the top performing emerging market rising by 18.2 per cent while Russia trumped a loss of 75.2 per cent.

Morocco, Korea and Thailand were the only other emerging markets to post gains in the third quarter while nine other countries fell more than 25 per cent each.

MSCI indices, calculated since 1969, are used around the world to measure the performance of international securities. Its database reflects about 80 per cent of the world's equity market capitalisation which is in the region of $ 30 trillion.

UNI