Arbitrage Opportunities from MSCI Index Reconstitutions In Asian Stock Markets
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Arbitrage Opportunities from MSCI Index Reconstitutions In Asian Stock Markets
Shuoge Qian; Xin Chang; Jiang Luo; Jiaxin Peng; Choon Wee Tan
- SGNanyang Technological University
- SGSingapore University of Social Sciences
- ?Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University
- Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
- Capital University of Economics and Business
- SGAdvantest (Singapore)
- ?Advance Capital Partners Pte. Ltd
Strategy in a nutshell
The strategy focuses on stocks from the MSCI index across seven major Asian markets: Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, and Taiwan. During each quarterly MSCI index review, the strategy constructs a value-weighted long-short portfolio by going long on added stocks and short on deleted stocks from AD+1 to ED-1, holding positions for the 15-trading day rebalancing interval. Stocks are bought or sold at opening and closing prices according to the rebalancing schedule.
Economic rationale
Index reconstitutions create announcement and execution effects that influence stock prices. In Western markets, these effects are often arbitraged efficiently. In Asian markets, however, index-tracking investors’ attempts to avoid tracking errors can induce temporary mispricing. This generates profitable arbitrage opportunities for other investors who can buy added stocks or short deleted stocks during the rebalancing window, capturing abnormal returns before the market fully adjusts. The study highlights the importance of timing and value-weighted execution in exploiting these opportunities while balancing costs of tracking errors and rebalancing.