Global Perspectives

Longer-term investors should focus on an energy company’s structural advantages in terms of asset base quality, operational efficiency and financial discipline, not the price of oil and gas.

The market has bid up Brazilian assets in anticipation of economic reforms, but the optimism should be well measured and individual securities well picked.

After a turbulent May, China and emerging markets appear poised to resume their ascent from the first quarter, even as trade-related air pockets remain likely.

Despite sprinting higher so far this year, developing country equities appear well positioned to sustain their momentum, and with less volatility.

Will emerging markets stocks rebound in 2019? Attractive valuations, strong forecast earnings growth, structural reforms, and an abating dollar headwind suggest they will.

Positive catalysts are in place in all three countries, and across emerging markets valuations and earnings expectations make for a potential rebound in 2019.

Deep declines are usually followed by rebounds that leave emerging market stocks with gains by year end, as the structural tailwinds are driven by steadily expanding middle classes. Meaningful, consistent exposures to the asset class are key to capitalizing on the long-run double-digit returns.

Turkish asset prices have plummeted this year, bringing their valuations to historically low levels. That presents potentially attractive opportunities to investors looking for quality stocks at bargain-basement prices.

Supply and demand dynamics, along with political fuel injection, may keep crude prices running hot.

Emerging market stocks are trading near bear market territory, but that’s par for the course for longer-run, rising returns.

Many forces undercut and bolster the greenback. Rather than accepting unknown risk around its near- or long-term direction, dollar-based equity investors may be better served using currency hedges so they can focus more on the individual merits of overseas securities.

The Fed chairman makes clear the bar for slowing monetary tightening is higher nowadays, and argues emerging markets are much better positioned to handle higher U.S. yields than they were before.

Yet the earnings potential of developed and emerging markets stocks is real, since they are at earlier points in their respective business cycles.

China has dropped norms to allow President Xi Jinping to remain in power after his second term ends. While worrisome at first blush, the populist turn and consolidation of power likely has near-term economic and financial market benefits, and longer-term political risks.

EM ETFs suffered deviations in their market prices relative to their net asset values, with their total returns materially underperforming the broad emerging market index.

Samsung is no longer a stodgy conglomerate (or chaebol in Korea) that just makes consumer and industrial electronic devices and equipment, along with some home appliances. Its sales of semiconductor chips and panels account for nearly half of total revenues.

The Central Bank of Mexico has raised the policy rate a quarter point to 7.25%, its highest level in nearly nine years. Banxico, as the Mexican monetary authority is known, had been widely expected to...

Emerging market assets have mostly had a gangbuster 2017 across the board, from stocks to bonds and currencies. But some macroeconomic headwinds and “idiosyncratic” or country-specific risks...

In an unexpected move, the government of India has announced a $32 billion plan to recapitalize the country’s sour-loan laden public sector banks, its biggest step so far in addressing a lingering problem...

Investors have looked beyond divisive, populist politics in the U.S., the U.K., Spain, and elsewhere in Europe, focusing instead on accelerating global economic growth and surging industrial metals prices...

When can a country's bluechip stocks be a bargain if they're trading at historically high forward earnings valuations after posting world-beating returns over the last two decades? Right now, if they're Indian ...

Future growth projections for electric vehicles vary dramatically, but all reflect real opportunities for fundamentals-focused investors surveying the links in supply and production chains.

Geopolitics is shaking global markets, with the epicenter of the latest tremors coming from the Korean Peninsula. Fiery rhetoric out of Pyongyang is nothing new. But it is certainly novel coming from the...

Among the lingering misconceptions about emerging markets is that they are proxy plays on commodities, prices of which presumably drive returns in developing country stocks. Historical...

If China is a master of incremental reforms to gain admission to select economic and financial circles, only to bend the rules after access is granted, MSCI appears well aware of its playbook. Whether...

China’s Baosteel Group is now the second-largest steel company in the world after ArcelorMittal, but it is the undisputed leader in the Middle Kingdom, where roughly half the world’s steel is produced. I...

Brazilian asset prices tanked May 18 following a local media report implicating President Michel Temer in alleged hush-money payments to former lower house Speaker Eduardo Cunha, who is now...

The political squalls blowing from north of Mexico’s border took a heavy toll on the Aztec nation’s asset prices at the beginning of the year, but as we noted a few days after Donald Trump, whose...

After nearly a decade of conservative administrations, South Koreans have elected a leftist human rights lawyer as president. Moon Jae-in's pledges to take a conciliatory tact with Kim Jong-un’s volatile regime...

After falling more than 6% in a week, oil prices pared their losses Friday, May 5, rebounding 1.6% as the “tug of war” between Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and U.S. shale...

In contrast to last year’s volatility in the first quarter, global equity markets showed strong returns during the first three months of 2017. Economic indicators and earnings around the world are beating...

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang once told a U.S. diplomat that China's official GDP data was “man made,” according to Bloomberg. To glean more accurate measures of growth, he instead looked at...

South Africa’s political tensions intensified on March 30 following President Jacob Zuma’s sweeping cabinet reshuffle, which included replacements of respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy ...

The International Energy Agency (IEA) Friday reported the best compliance on an oil output cut agreement in the history of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). While this is...

For a country steeped in its customs, India's government and central bank have taken a liking to the element of surprise. The policy announcements have been far from pleasant, causing people...

Over the last 10- and 15-year periods, the MSCI emerging market consumer discretionary, consumer staples, and health care sectors have massively outperformed energy and materials. This...

After three straight years of declines, developing country stocks regained some ground in 2016. Yet the MSCI Emerging Market Index's 11.2% total return in 2016 came with marked volatility along...