Leading index compiler Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) announced no changes to the MSCI Frontier Market Index in its August 2020 Quarterly Review.

This is the first time that there have been no changes to the MSCI Frontier Markets Index or its Small Cap segment since August 2018.

MSCI also stated that it will not implement changes as part of the August 2020 Quarterly Index Review for the MSCI Bangladesh, MSCI Lebanon and MSCI Nigeria Indexes or impacted composite indexes. All three countries received a warning from MSCI in its 2020 Market Classification Review over potential market accessibility and liquidity issues.

As of the end of July 2020, the largest constituent countries in the MSCI Frontier Markets Index are Kuwait (36.53%), Vietnam (17.22%), Morocco (8.69%), Nigeria (5.21%) and Romania (4.79%). Kuwaiti equities will move from the MSCI Frontier Markets Index to the MSCI Emerging Markets Index before the end of the year. Out of the 89 constituents in the MSCI Frontier Markets Index, the largest are National Bank of Kuwait (17.36%), Kuwait Finance House (8.25%) and Mobile Telecom Company (3.90%), all three are Kuwaiti stocks.

There will also be no changes in the list of Emerging Markets currently included in the MSCI Frontier Emerging Markets Index. The Index is constructed by aggregating all the country indexes in the MSCI Frontier Markets Index and selected country indexes in the MSCI Emerging Markets Indexes, with the latter being reviews on an annual basis.

Articles on the previous four Quarterly Reviews can be found below:

May 2020

February 2020

November 2019

August 2019