How Big Are The Big Five Tech Giants

The top five tech companies – Amazon.com Inc (AMZN), Apple(AAPL), Alphabet(GOOG) and Facebook(FB) Microsoft(MSFT) have enjoyed tremendous growth through the pandemic. Millions of people working from home and millions going online for shopping have helped these giants. The following charts shows the astonishing rise of these firms. Stock price growth since Dec 31, 2019: Click to enlarge   …

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Average Annual Return of Individual Investors vs. S&P 500 From 2009 To 2019: Chart

The average individual investor in equity markets earns less than the market return. This has been confirmed by many studies. The reason for the difference is that individual investors are affected by many human behavioral issues such as trying to time the market, excessive trading, buying high and selling low, panicking during market corrections, etc. …

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Why Foreign Stocks Could Beat U.S. Stocks Over The Next Few Years

I have written many times before that no country is the consistent winner in equity market returns every year. The winner in one year could be the loser in next and vice versa. Though US stocks have performed very well for over a decade now, their leadership could be overtaken by their foreign peers. According …

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Why Invest in Countries Based on Their Industry Exposure

Investing in foreign stocks involves a thorough analysis of many factors such as market type (emerging vs. developed vs. frontier markets), form of government, liquidity, transparency, accounting standards, etc. After deciding on a particular country, it is again important to determine in what industries or sectors to invest in. This decision is critical because each …

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Why International Diversification is Important

Diversification is a simple and easy way to reduce risk. While spreading one’s funds across various asset classes is wise it is also important to avoid investing all or most the funds in one’s home country companies. Most investors including those in the US  are affected by what’s called the “Home Bias”. According to a …

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