What smart money is saying about MSCI Inc.
6 funds in our archive have pitched MSCI Inc., most recently Baron Durable Advantage Fund in March 2026.
MSCI Inc., alongside its subsidiaries, offers sophisticated tools and services to support global investment decision-making and process management for its clients. The company is structured into four key segments: Index, Analytics, ESG and Climate, and Private Assets. The Index division furnishes benchmarks employed across diverse investment applications, including the creation of indexed financial products such as ETFs, mutual funds, and various derivatives; performance evaluation; portfolio building and adjustment; and strategic asset allocation. This segment also oversees the licensing of GICS and GICS Direct. Its Analytics segment provides comprehensive solutions for risk management, performance attribution, and portfolio oversight, encompassing content, applications, and services. These offerings deliver an integrated perspective on risk and return, alongside detailed analysis of market, credit, liquidity, and counterparty risks across all asset classes. The segment also includes managed services like consolidating client portfolio data from disparate sources, reviewing and reconciling inputs, and producing tailored reports. Furthermore, its HedgePlatform is specifically designed for assessing, evaluating, and monitoring risks related to hedge fund investments. The ESG and Climate segment delivers offerings that enable institutional investors to understand the long-term impact of environmental, social, and governance factors on both their portfolios and individual securities. It also equips investors with essential data, ratings, research, and analytical tools for navigating evolving regulatory landscapes. The Private Assets segment specializes in providing real estate market and transaction data, benchmarks, return analytics, climate impact assessments, and valuable market insights for funds, investors, and managers. It also extends business intelligence to real estate owners, managers, developers, and brokers, while offering critical investment decision support for private capital. Its diverse clientele includes asset owners and managers, financial intermediaries, wealth management firms, real estate professionals, and corporations. Founded in 1998, MSCI Inc. is headquartered in New York City.
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Position history
Between Q1 2025 and Q3 2026, 19 fund letters reported a position in MSCI Inc., with 2 buys (opened or added) and 1 sell (trimmed or exited).
| Quarter | Letters | Bought | Sold | Theses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q3 2026 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Q2 2026 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Q1 2026 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Q4 2025 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Q2 2025 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Q1 2025 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
Bought and Sold count moves: the same sentence published by several funds of one house in a quarter counts once.
Fund activity · 19 positions · 4 moves
- ExitedPolen Focus GrowthSeptember 2026
“Portfolio Activity In Q3 2026, we initiated new positions in Adyen , ASML , Quanta Services , and Seagate Technology , while selling MSCI and Rollins . We also added to our existing positions in EMCOR Group and Meta Platforms , while trimming Eli Lilly , Shopify , and Starbucks . The net goal of this activity was to improve the Portfolio’s balance by redeploying capital toward businesses where we see stronger current momentum, attractive long - term growth prospects, and more visible demand tailwinds. We initiated a new position in Adyen , a global payments platform that is evolving from a pure - play processor into a broader financial operating system for modern commerce. Polen Focus Growth – 3Q 2026 Portfolio Manager Commentary 3 We believe Adyen’s single - stack technology, banking licenses, and deep enterprise relationships position the company well as commerce becomes increasingly complex across online, offline, cross - border transactions, as well as emerging payment activity initiated or managed by AI agents. Recent growth remains strong, and we see a meaningful opportunity to continue gaining share from more fragmented legacy payment providers. We also initiated a new position in ASML , which we view as a uniquely advantaged provider of advanced lithography equipment used in leading - edge semiconductor manufacturing. ASML’s position in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography remains critical to the continued scaling of advanced logic and memory, while its service business provides a recurring component to revenues. Recent concerns around China exposure and domestic deep ultraviolet (DUV) development have contributed to share price volatility, but we believe ASML remains one of the most competitively advantaged businesses in the semiconductor supply chain. Additionally, we acquired a new position in Quanta Services , North America’s largest specialty infrastructure contractor, mostly focused on the electric power grid in North America. Quanta provides end - to - end services for electric utilities, renewables developers, hyperscalers , pipelines, and industrial customers. We view the company as a picks - and - shovels beneficiary of grid modernization, rising electricity demand, and the broader infrastructure buildout. Importantly, much of this work relates to essential infrastructure needs and multi - year projects, which can be constrained by permitting, supply chain, and skilled labor availability. We believe the company’s capabilities and positioning should support growth over time. Lastly, we also acquired a new position in Seagate Technology , one of only two major suppliers in the hard disk drive market. Demand for data storage continues to grow, driven by cloud, AI training data, video, telemetry, archival storage, and physical AI data. Hard disk drives remain an economically attractive solution compared to SSDs at datacenter - relevant capacities, while supply is constrained and major customers are entering into longer - term supply arrangements. We believe this creates an attractive combination of volume visibility, pricing power, and operating leverage, though we remain mindful of cyclical hyperscaler capex risk and potential pressure from NAND pricing. During the quarter, we exited our position in MSCI to help fund the addition to Meta Platforms.”
MSCI Inc. - September 2026
“During the quarter, we exited our position in MSCI to help fund the addition to Meta Platforms.”
MSCI Inc. - September 2026
“AI Infra Consumer Fin Infra Health Ind/Aero Ads Phys AI Total * Defensive Quality V, MSCI TMO APH, NVDA TDG, LIN LIN 5 companies”
MSCI Inc. - September 2026
Listed in Buffalo funds Mid Cap Growth Fund’s reported holdings.
MSCI Inc. - June 2026
“Similarly, we are finding compelling profit cycle opportunities in targeted areas of financials, including Robinhood, Tradeweb and MSCI.”
MSCI Inc. - June 2026
“Our holding in service provider businesses such as leading global financial market indices firm MSCI also performed well.”
MSCI Inc. - June 2026
Listed in Baron First Principles ETF’s reported holdings.
MSCI Inc. - New positionAve Maria FundsJune 2026
“Proceeds were used to initiate positions in GFL Environmental, Inc., MSCI, Inc., RB Global, Inc. and SharkNinja, Inc.”
MSCI Inc. - June 2026
“MSCI, Inc. 3.02”
MSCI Inc. - June 2026
“, and MSCI Inc. Portfolio Holdings As of June 30, 2026, the Fund’s top 10 holdings represented 66.8% of net assets. Many of these investments have been successful and were purchased when they were much smaller businesses. We believe they continue to offer significant appreciation potential, although we cannot guarantee that will be the case. The top five positions in the portfolio, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. , Tesla, Inc. , MSCI Inc. , Shopify Inc. , and Hyatt Hotels Corporation , all have”
MSCI Inc. - June 2026
“It was an unusual quarter from a performance attribution perspective. Information Technology (IT) was the only sector in the Index to outperform the Index, accounting for two-thirds of its total gain. The Fund’s entire 156bps shortfall relative to the Index could be attributed either to weak stock selection in IT, which detracted 279bps, or to weak stock selection in Financials, which cost an additional 227bps. Somehow, all 11 of our holdings classified as Financials, including Visa and Mastercard , which we view as digital railroads, and MSCI , Moody’s , and S&P Global , which we view as business services, detracted from our relative returns during the quarter.”
MSCI Inc. - HoldsBaron Partners FundJune 2026
Listed in Baron Partners Fund’s reported holdings.
MSCI Inc. - HoldsBaron Partners FundJune 2026
Listed in Baron Partners Fund’s reported holdings.
MSCI Inc. - HoldsBaron CapitalJune 2026
Listed in Baron Capital’s reported holdings.
MSCI Inc. - HoldsAcción GlobalJune 2026
“There are more in this basket (when a whole factor comes within reach, we believe the right thing is to diversify), and each of them still has a small weight in the portfolio, but their whole already represents practically 5% of our savings (if we take into account Visa, Tradeweb and MSCI, we would go above 11% in businesses that "watch crises from a balcony"”
MSCI Inc. - HoldsHIX Capital Geo FlagshipJune 2026
Listed in HIX Capital Geo Flagship’s reported holdings.
MSCI Inc. - HoldsBaron Growth FundMarch 2026
Listed in Baron Growth Fund’s reported holdings.
MSCI Inc. - March 2026
“In our portfolio, a number of names were hurt by this, including Intuit, Microsoft, Moody’s, Verisk and MSCI.”
MSCI Inc. - March 2025
“longrun equity April 2025 | 4 Case study: MSCI The ‘benchmark’ business In this section, we would like to dive deeper into one of our recent purchases, MSCI, whose business it is to ‘help clients build better portfolios’.”
MSCI Inc.
Also mentioned · 5
These funds discuss MSCI Inc. as a competitor, benchmark or comparable, without disclosing a position in it.
- MentionedLiontrust MPS Blended Income 4September 2026
“Against this challenging fixed income backdrop, global equities held up well, with the MSCI All Country World Index returning 1.5% in sterling terms, although performance varied considerably across regions and market capitalisations.”
MSCI Inc. - June 2026
“Neither MSCI nor any other party involved in or related to compiling, computing or creating the MSCI data makes any express or implied warranties or representations with respect to such data”
MSCI Inc. - MentionedGrandeur Peak FundsJune 2026
“Exhibit 1 Source: MSCI AC IMI, 6/30/2026”
MSCI Inc. - MentionedAltrinsic Global Advisors International EquityJune 2026
“Dear Investor, The Altrinsic International Equity portfolio gained 8.7% gross of fees in the second quarter (+8.5% net), as measured in US dollars. Concerns surrounding commodity inflation and Middle East tensions gave way to AI optimism and a related surge in semiconductor demand, fueling a 10.8% rise in the MSCI EAFE Index. i As seen in Charts 1 and 2 , high-beta and momentum factors led markets, while sector leadership came from technology companies, cyclical banks, and a narrow set of industrials tied to AI infrastructure. In fact, half the benchmark’s gain came from just 20 AI-related infrastructure stocks, out of a universe of nearly 700. Our underweight to these areas, combined with weakness in our non-bank financial holdings, weighed on relative performance.”
MSCI Inc. - MentionedBroyhill Asset ManagementDecember 2025
“For the full year, the portfolio gained 1.7%, trailing the MSCI ACWI’s impressive 22.9% return.”
MSCI Inc.
Fund coverage · 6 theses
- Baron Durable Advantage FundMarch 2026
MSCI is a proprietary data and index franchise with strong switching costs and multiple secular growth tailwinds.
Read the full thesis - Guinness Global Quality Mid CapDecember 2025
MSCI is a mission-critical, high-margin, asset-light provider of index and analytics tools with recurring revenues and durable growth.
Read the full thesis - Baron Durable Advantage FundDecember 2025
MSCI is a leading provider of proprietary index and analytics data poised to benefit from AI efficiencies and product innovation under strong, aligned leadership.
Read the full thesis - Guinness Global Quality Mid CapJune 2025
MSCI is a leading provider of investment decision support tools with a strong revenue model, high profitability, and a proven track record of consistent growth.
Read the full thesis - Alpha Wealth FundsMarch 2025
MSCI is a leading provider of decision support tools for the investment community with a strong competitive advantage via its industry-standard indices and consistent revenue growth.
Read the full thesis - Rothshild&Co LongRun EquityMarch 2025
With unmatched profitability, consistent 10% organic growth, and masterful capital allocation under a visionary owner-operator, MSCI stands out as a rare compounding machine poised for durable, high-return expansion.
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