The number of foreigners (i.e. foreign-born people) relative to total population varies across countries. Some countries such as those in Eastern Europe have low foreign-born population since they have been closed economies until the iron curtain fell. Luxembourg(LUX) and Switzerland (CHE) have the highest foreign-born population since they are tax havens. Mexico (MEX) and Poland(POL) have the …
The South Korean economy is dominated by a handful of Chaebols. One of these conglomerates is Samsung. The following chart shows the size and complexity of Samsung: Click to enlarge Source: Why a horse named Vitana V might be good news for Korean equities, The Equities Forum, M&G Investments Update (Aug, 2017): Samsung Ownership Structure-2017 …
The Top 3 current account surplus in 2006 were China, Japan and Germany in that order. In 2016, Germany became the world’s top current account surplus country: Click to enlarge Source: Your morphing global savings glut, FT Alphaville From an investment point of view, sometimes surplus countries are better for investment than deficit countries. The US …
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“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” – Niels Bohr Forecasting economic trends is difficult especially trying to predict the performance of equity markets relative to the economic trend. For example, the relationship between equity returns and economic growth for a given country is tenuous at best. To put it another way, just because a country’s …
Continue reading ‘Forecasting Economic Trends and Industry Trends is Futile’ »
Australian stocks have rebounded sharply in the past few months as commodity markets have recovered. In terms of equity market performance since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09 thru last year, Australian stocks have under-performed the US market as measured by the S&P 500 index as shown in the chart below: Click to enlarge …
Continue reading ‘Comparing the Performance of Australian vs. Global Stocks’ »