U.S. Ranks 33rd in terms of Dividend Yield Globally

The US equity market has one of the low to average dividend yields in the world. The S&P 500’s yield has been around 2% for many years now. Of the 44 countries in the MSCI All-Country World Index, the US ranks poorly. Based on the dividend yield the US stands at the 33rd spot. Click to enlarge Source: …

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Foreign-born Population As a Percentage of Total Population for Select Countries

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 …

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Samsung Organizational Structure

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 …

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The Top 12 Current Account Surplus Countries

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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Forecasting Economic Trends and Industry Trends is Futile

“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 …

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