Sovereign Wealth Funds(SWFs) have become powerful players in the global markets in recent years due to the amount of funds they control. A recent Reuters article mentioned that Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund owns 1% of all global stocks. The following is a summary of important points from “Assessment and Outlook for Sovereign Wealth Funds”, Focus, …
Emerging markets have strongly outperformed developed markets this year. The equity market indices of countries like China, India, Brazil, etc. are up significantly over markets in Europe, Japan and North America. Over the last 10 years, the US and Japanese equity markets were essentially flat to down. Emerging market indices have grown many times in …
Continue reading ‘Will Emerging Markets Continue to Outperform Developed Markets?’ »
The chart below shows the performance of equity markets of select countries over the long-term and in the past 20 years: Source: Credit Suisse via Equinox of South Africa In the long-term (1900-2008) shown in red color bar, the stock market returns of the countries shown above ranged from 1.5% to 6.5%. The grey bar …
Continue reading ‘Real Equity Market Returns Over 108 Years vs. Past 20 Years’ »
The U.S. personal savings rate has been going up since last year and in the second quarter of this year reached nearly 5% of disposable personal income.But how about Government and Corporate Savings?. The interesting chart below shows historical savings for Corporate, Government and Personal Saving from 1940 thru 2008: Source: (1) Includes individuals (including …
Continue reading ‘Historical Perspective: Corporate vs. Government vs. Personal Savings’ »
From the March 2009 lows, many stock markets worldwide have rebounded nicely and are now in the positive column for the year. However what about the performance of these markets from their all time highs?. Most global stock markets made their all time highs in 2007 or 2008. From that peak many of them fell …
Continue reading ‘The Best and Worst Performing Equity Markets Compared to Their Peaks’ »