Craft Breweries And Their Owners: Chart

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Craft beers were all the rage among beer drinkers a while ago. The craze for craft beers seems to have waned recently. When craft beer was at its peak it seemed every millennial with a beard started a craft brewery to brew beers with some wacky names like coconut-peachy mango ale, blue moon shine, barking dog, arrogant moron ale, etc. With that said, the majority of the craft beers on the grocery store shelves today are owned by the big beer companies and not by some small independent local beer aficionado.

The chart below shows the top craft beers and their owners:

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Source: The Mad Fermentationist

The World’s Biggest Beef Producers: Chart

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The three largest beef producers in the world are the US, Brazil and the EU. Together they account about half of the global beef production. Australia and Argentina are also some of the world’s top beef producing countries as shown in the chart below:

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Source: RFE/RL

Updated 2/3/19:

Who eats the most Meat

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Source: Which countries eat the most meat?, The BBC

Corporate Tax Rates Have Been Declining in Major Developed Countries for Years

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The Corporate Tax Rates have been on a downward slope in many developed countries for some years now. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) gave another boost to further reduction in rates as countries struggled to stimulate their economies. The UK has the lowest corporate tax rate at 19% and politicians are considering to cut it to 17% by 2020 as a result of the Brexit debacle.

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Source: Charles Schwab, KPMG data as of 1/17/2019.

Source: Tax War: Will Global Competition to Lower Taxes Lift Growth? by Jeffrey Kleintop, Charles Schwab

Lowering tax rates for corporations is not necessarily good for a country all the time. For example, one unintended consequence of low tax rates for companies leads to higher tax rates for individuals as governments look to fill the tax revenue gap. This situation may look like robbing Peter to pay Paul. So the key for regulators and politicians is to find the optimal rate that is fairer to both corporations and individuals.

Which Stocks Are Attractive Now: U.S. or Europe?

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European stocks have under-performed their American peers for many years now. However after years of under-performance European stocks could outperform American stocks this year. According to John Bennett of Henderson European Focus Trust, European stocks offer a bet better bet especially in the value and growth category. Before we get to his reasons, the below chart shows that European equities decoupled from US equities from 2011.

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The following is an excerpt from the article by Mr.John Bennett:

No gorging in Europe

Further, unlike the US, Europe has never been infused with – nor enthused by – the equity culture, and thus share buybacks as a means of earnings-per-share or share-price support have never been that popular. In contrast, emboldened by executive compensation schemes and plentiful supplies of low-cost debt, corporate America has gorged itself at the buyback feast. Add to that the bottom-line boost from president Trump’s tax reforms and maybe, just maybe, America’s stock market boom isn’t all down to vastly superior operating models.

In other words, sufficient evidence exists to suggest that the age-old inputs – and potential nemeses for investors – of investor crowding (fashion) and artificially boosted earnings (cheap money, leverage, buybacks, tax breaks) are at work. As sure as night follows day, those factors will not always be in investors’ favour. For example, one ingredient that would turn things in the investment world upside down, and catalyse a resurgence of value stocks, would be the return of inflation.

What we are really saying is that one doesn’t need to be a diehard mean reversionist to question the zeitgeist. A combination of investor positioning, the human tendency to extrapolate from share prices, growth rates or market share gains, a late-stage bull market in US equities and the US economy, not to mention valuation (it never matters until it does) all suggest that now is not the time to give up on Europe – nor indeed her equities. Now is not the time to abandon a selection of so-called “value” stocks in favour of an all-out “growth” (or momentum) portfolio. Happily, Europe offers an ample selection of both.

Source: John Bennett: Europe or US? Europe is a surer bet for value and growth stocks, Money Observer

How to invest in Europe?

Some of the ETFs available for Europe are:

  • SPDR EURO STOXX 50 ETF (FEZ)
  • SPDR STOXX Europe 50 ETF (FEU)
  • Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF (VGK)

Disclosure: No Positions