It is maintained by MSCI Inc.,[1] a provider of investment decision support tools; the EAFE acronym stands for Europe, Australasia and Far East.
The index includes a selection of stocks from 21 developed markets, but excludes those from the U.S. and Canada.
It is probably the most common benchmark for foreign stock funds in the U.S.[citation needed] The MSCI EAFE index includes stocks of around 1500 companies from these countries and regions:[2] These are the same countries and regions as for MSCI World except without the U.S. and Canada.
Many managers of North American international stock funds use the EAFE as a performance benchmark.
Vanguard has the mutual fund Vanguard Developed Markets Index Inv and the Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF; these funds previously used the MSCI EAFE, but now use the FTSE Developed All Cap ex US Index, which is very similar but includes South Korea and Canada, and includes exposure to small-cap stocks.