The US corporate tax rate has stayed at the 40% rate for many years now. But in many developed countries the tax rate has been been declining in the past few years as shown in the chart below: Click to tn enlarge Source: Charles Schwab, KPMG data as of 4/26/2017. The U.S. statutory corporate …
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US stocks continue to remain elevated since the beginning of the year and the elections. Stocks in certain sectors such as financials have soared substantially since the elections.This week the tech-heavy NASDAQ crossed the record 6,000 mark. Despite the superb performance of US equities, investors need to be cautious since the P/E ratio of US stocks …
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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 …
U.S. stocks are expensive based on the forward P/E ratio. According to Factset, the current ratio of 17.6 is higher than the averages reached in 5, 10, 15 and 20 years. Click to enlarge Source: Factset
The Periodic Table of Investment Returns for Asset Classes from 1997 thru 2016 is shown in the chart below. Last year Small Cap Value stocks were the best performers while international stocks were the worst performers. The last time foreign stocks had decent returns were before the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09. Click to enlarge Source: Prudential