The MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) is a comprised of two basic pieces: the MSCI World (Developed) Index, which contains about 1,600 companies and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which contains about 850 companies. The MSCI ACWI is a good global reference point for measuring relative performance trends.
Over the last five years, the MSCI World index has vastly outperformed the MSCI Emerging Markets index. This is easy to see as we compare both indexes to the MSCI ACWI in the charts below. Companies form the developed world have outperformed by 3% while companies from the emerging markets have underperfomed by 22%.
Within the developed world, only four countries have outperformed the MSCI ACWI: Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and the US.
The only emerging markets countries that outperformed the MSCI ACWI are: Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Qatar, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.