Guide to Analysing Companies

Morgan Stanley Capital International Indices
A set of stockmarket indices used by professional invest-
ment managers to measure their performance against the rele-
vant benchmark. Each day at the close of trading Morgan
Stanley Capital International (msci) calculates by how much
11,000 or so indices (measuring everything from individual
countries to industrial sectors) have gone up or down. This
helps fund managers decide what weighting within their
portfolio to give individual stocks and how well or badly
their investments are fairing. 
Mortgage
The transfer of an interest in a property to somebody else as
security for a loan. This transfer most commonly takes
place between the buyer of a home and the financial institution
(bank, building society or other such lender) that is helping to
finance the purchase. In many countries such institutions spe-
cialise in mortgages; in others, particularly continental Europe
M
MORTGAGE
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and Asia, the market is less developed because fewer people
own their own homes. There are many different types of mort-
gages, from repayment (which are paid off bit by bit, month by
month) to endowment (which are paid off in one go at the end
of the period from an investment fund built up for the purpose).
A risk with the latter is that the fund will fail to build up enough
money to pay off the mortgage at the end of the period. If that
happens, because of falling stockmarkets, the borrower
may be left with a shortfall. In sophisticated markets such as the
UK, where a high proportion of people own their own homes,
mortgages are competitive and big business for the banks and fi-
nancial institutions that provide them.