MSCI considers again adding Chinese shares

Index provider MSCI has kicked off its annual review to determine whether to add domestic Chinese shares to its global benchmarks, a step that could potentially divert billions of dollars of capital to Asia’s biggest markets, The Wall Street Journal reports. MSCI sent an updated consultation document to fund managers Wednesday after US markets closed. The changes from last year’s proposal include a two-thirds reduction in the number of stocks to be included initially. MSCI declined to include China’s local-currency shares in June last year, citing difficulties accessing markets and concerns around stock suspensions. The MSCI China Index up 14.3% so far this year, outperforming both the company’s Asian and emerging-market benchmarks. China is the biggest domestic market not featured in MSCI’s flagship indexes.