The emerging market growth story is beautiful in its simplicity. Younger people with increasing amounts of income in industrializing countries should drive demand for more products, services, infrastructure and housing. Of course, the emergers are not without their concerns. They face more vexing inflation than developed economies. They’re more dependent on the natural resources they can or cannot export. [...] [...more]
Nearly every visitor to the CNBC microphone is making the same proclamation; that is, emerging markets can’t handle commodity price inflation as well as developed markets. The problem with this analysis is the conclusion that each is providing. Specifically, stock assets from the U.S, Japan and the Euro-zone will outperform the industrializing world. This has been true for the previous 6 [...] [...more]
The S&P 500 stayed above its 200-day exponential moving average for a second consecutive day. Chart enthusiasts (a.k.a., technical analysts) find this trend rather bullish for the popular large-cap indicator. Benchmarks for small- and mid-cap U.S. equities have also advanced the bullish cause. Both the iShares Russell 2000 Fund (IWM) and the SPDR MidCap 400 Fund (MDY) [...] [...more]
