The following infographics shows the best wine and cheese combinations for wines from the US, Australia, Argentina, France, Italy and Spain:
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Source: Social Vignerons
On The Decline of Major American Retailers
The explosive growth of online retailing has had a devastating impact on traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. The tremendous success of online giants like Amazon(AMZN) have led to the death of many a retailer. Today the market cap of Amazon is over $920.0 billion while many of the former retail giants are fighting for survival. Some former giants such as Sears have completely failed.
The following table shows the change in market cap of major US retailers over the past 12 years:
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Source: The power of disruption and what it means for Asia, Schroders
Amazon’s market cap has increased by 4,437 % over the past 12 years while most others have lost a huge portion of their value with the exception of Walmart(WMT). Sears shareholders have completely been wiped out.
Disclosure: No Positions
Four Economic Cycles of Emerging Markets: Chart
Emerging markets are different from developed markets in terms of economic cycles. According to Gordon Fraser, portfolio manager at BlackRock there are four different economic cycles in emerging markets.These are sell-off, healing, liquidity on, and activity surge as shown in the chart below:
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Source: Are you making this emerging markets mistake?, Money Observer
He noted that Argentina and Mexico are in the healing stage while South Korea is in the sell-off stage.
The World’s Worst Cities For Traffic Congestion: Infographic
Most of the cities ranked worst for sitting in traffic are in emerging markets. The world’s most congested city is Mumbai, India followed by Bogota, Colombia and Lima, Peru. Among the developed world cities in the list are London, Paris, Rome and New York. Being stuck for hours in traffic not only has a huge negative economic impact but also causes stress and other health conditions and of course waste of productive time and increased pollution levels. At a higher level, high congestion points to failure of public policies in terms of unplanned or reckless development without regard to population levels, infrastructure and the environment.
The following chart shows the world’s worst cities for traffic congestion:
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Source: RFE/RL
On the Composition of India’s S&P BSE SENSEX Index
The S&P BSE SENSEX Index of the Indian equity market soared recently after the re-election of the Prime Minister Modi. The index is up just over 10% year-to-date.
Currently the index is trading in the 39,800 range within a striking distance of the 52-week high at 40,312. It remains to be seen if it can surpass the 52-week high and hit a new record.
Similar to other emerging market indices, the Indian benchmark is highly concentrated with a few major sectors dominating the market. In most emerging markets, the banking/financial sector is the biggest sector in the benchmark. The financial sector is the largest sector in the Sensex also. This sector accounts for just over 43% of the index.
The next four major sectors in the Sensex are IT, Oil & Gas, Fast-Moving Consumer Goods(FMCG) and transport equipments. The extremely high allocation to finance in the index is both a huge risk and opportunity.
The chart below shows the composition of the S&P BSE Sensex Index:
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Source: BSE
Two of the major private sector banks trading in the US markets are HDFC Bank Ltd (HDB) and ICICI Bank Ltd(IBN).
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Disclosure: No Positions