It's Raining BRICs

For several years, investors have been told to allocate at least some of their funds to international sources, as many provide stronger growth prospects than the US.  The most popular countries of the international investing theme have recently been the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. While the BRIC countries outperformed significantly over the last few years, recent performance has been nothing to write home about. 

In the chart below, we highlight the percentage decline from their peak readings in each country.  Of the five countries shown, the US is actually down less from its peak than all of the BRIC countries.

click to enlarge

Comments

[Ashish S:]

As short term investments, they have underperformed in the last year. With a five year time horizon as opposed to a one year time horizon ..

India (Sensex) +265%
China (Shanghai Comp) +92%
Russia (Micex) +242%
Brazil (Bovespa) +334%

US (S&P) +25%

Maybe it does pay to diversify ...

2008 Jul 29 04:19 AM

[samij:]

the blog entry just doesn't make any sense and it contributes even less. just what kind of measurement is "from the peak"? if you compare more volatile market against less volatile market of course the one with more volatility is likely to be more down "from the peak" than the less volatile one, likewise it's more likely to be more up "from the bottom".

your own picture shows that three out of four bric countries developed better than the us starting from year ago.

it just hasn't been good period to be long in stock, but even if you were all cash, you'd have done way better holding bric currencies than the $.

2008 Jul 29 09:36 AM

[Jmar11:]

While BRIC still offer opportunities, have you thought about the emerging markets (..frontiers) coming after BRIC? What do you you think of Kazakhstan?
There's an article that lists Mexico, Korea, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam as the next big countries for investors: www.greenfaucet.com/th...
While one should do their DD, it makes sense to look at other countries besides BRICs

2008 Aug 01 11:43 AM

[Sim258:]

Hi
Where do you get these estimates from? Reliable source?


On Jul 29 04:19 AM Ashish S wrote:

> As short term investments, they have underperformed in the last year.
> With a five year time horizon as opposed to a one year time horizon
> ..
>
> India (Sensex) +265%
> China (Shanghai Comp) +92%
> Russia (Micex) +242%
> Brazil (Bovespa) +334%
>
> US (S&P) +25%
>
> Maybe it does pay to diversify ...

2008 Aug 22 05:52 PM