Gazprom became the largest stock in the MSCI EM index on September 1, after its foreign inclusion factor was increased from 20% to 40%. It now makes up 5.4% of the MSCI EM index (up from 2.8%), 18.6% of MSCI EMEA, and 35.9% of MSCI Eastern Europe. The decision means that Gazprom overtakes Samsung Electronics as largest included company; Samsung has a weighting of 3.7%.
Analysts believe that the change will force index-tracking funds to buy more than $1 billion of the stock, supporting the share price in the first half of September.
Number three
Thanks to the reweighting, Russia now makes up 11.2% of the EM index, lifting it to number three behind Korea (16.6%) and Taiwan (12.8%), and taking it ahead of Korea, Brazil and South Africa.
The stock will now also make up 0.4% of the MSCI All-countries index. “Official confirmation of the second stage of Gazprom’s rebalancing is a useful reminder for global investors of the importance of Gazprom in the context of global equities,” says Deutsche UFG strategist Alexei Zabotkin.