The USA Hits the BRICs

The US stock markets have been downright boring on a 10-year basis, while the BRIC countries have left the US in the dust in the last several years.  The recent turn of the tables on the emerging markets is so severe that YTD 2008, the US markets are stronger than Russia, India and China, and just barely behind Brazil.

click image to enlarge

BRIC is:

• Brazil (EWZ)
• Russia (RSX)
• India (INP)
• China (FXI)

Comments

[Dee Trooth:]

The report is brief, literate and factual. The graph is accurate and informative. The author's research was FREE. Additional commentary would have been a plus. Thank you.

2008 Aug 11 09:13 AM

[QVM Group:]

Thunderlight;

Exciting it is not. Boring it may be to some. Useful or informative it may be to others.

It is not an editorial, it is just data. Data is only boring if the particular reader has no use for it. For those who find use it is not boring.

This was published on our blog for other purposes, and Seeking Alpha republished it, apparently believing it could be of use to some of their readers -- not to all, not to you, but perhaps to some

It's not really an article, just a data observation.

However, stay tuned. Some of our blog posts are opinion articles that have real punch. Seeking Alpha republishes some of those.

I do thank you and appreciate the civil tone of your comment.

Thanks.

Richard

2008 Aug 11 09:44 AM

[Thunderlight:]

Richard,

This report offered nothing other than factual information, which readers can easily extract on their own.

It offered no opinion, analysis, and most importantly, no forward prediction.

Furthermore, the tone of the article of mis-leading.
Yes, US market is doing better than BRIC.
But, US market is not doing well. We are in a bear market, hello?
To conclude, SP500 is doing better than BRIC by sucking less.

2008 Aug 11 10:24 AM

[QVM Group:]

Thunderlight:

The data is not misleading, and there is no tone to the article, and as my previous comment stated, no opinion was intended or offered.

There was no suggestion that the US market it doing well.

The data is straight forward. So far this year, US stocks and BRIC stocks have had the particular performance cited.

Would the data be less "misleading" if it showed a different period where BRIC massively outperformed the US? Or, would it be less "misleading" if yet a different period were shown where the US massively outperformed?

You can find all of those examples. Just pick your time period.

The chart (not article) responded to a 2008 YTD question and it provides the correct answer.

If ease of data access were the basis for excluding material from Seeking Alpha, then a large portion of the articles would be excluded. It's even easier for the reader when it's posted and they don't have to go get it.

We will continue to post pure data charts on our blog, and Seeking Alpha may continue to select some for publication. My "opinion" and "forward" view is that you should stop reading them so you don't need to be so troubled by them.

2008 Aug 11 10:46 AM

[User 86999:]

Richard, you have made many, many excellent contributions and I look forward to reading your posts, but please know that as authors/writers we do need to exercise some judgment as to what makes a <i>good</i>... contribution. If you judge this post by putting yourself in someone else's shoes, you will see what the comments are trying to say. The quality of jimmy's comments is rather scary, but I hope he will be more cautious next time, and express himself in a more adult manner. Look forward to your usual insightful articles.

2008 Aug 11 10:52 AM

[QVM Group:]

User 86999,

I deeply appreciate your kind words about other articles, and I do agree with all of the comment here, including you, that this post is lightweight.

My problem is that it was not created for publication at Seeking Alpha and I did not submit it for publication. We published that data on our site for our own purposes, entirely independent of Seeking Alpha.

Seeking Alpha scans blogs such as ours and selects certain posts for republication at Seeking Alpha. While some authors write with Seeking Alpha as a target and submit them, others such as ourselves, primarily write with our own sites and audiences as targets, and generally do not submit to other sites for republication. We, and many other authors, permit Seeking Alpha to republish as the see fit.

Obviously, republication is beneficial to us in most instances -- this one excluded.

We can't restrict our own publication agenda to posts that always make sense for Seeking Alpha and its readers.

Clearly, this republished post is merely a data view -- but it was not a "contribution"

If we had prepared an article for submission it would have been in depth.

I will ask Seeking Alpha to remove this article from their site, since it has proven problematic for so many readers.

Your diplomacy is appreciated.

Richard

2008 Aug 11 11:27 AM

[Emerald:]

Writer and commentors with a lot of free time on their hands. Spare the rest of us with the endleess, useless back and forth.

2008 Aug 11 12:12 PM

[phdinsuntan...:]

Dont give Up Richard, this is a very interesting index, same as your useful maps on pipelines and the relation between executive benefits and net income, good contributions to culture, not only for financial strategies. The conclusion is clear from the indexes: not a good half year for emerging or developed markets, good only for short term commodity traders, and not anymore, probably fixed income in europe outperformed all this, but now was miserably hit measured in US$. In summary, one of the most volatile years for all assets and no place to hide. Where we going from here? Now, the short selling restriction and the "Trichet call" has all running to the safety of US variable assets, is the US the least worst place for capital preservation? well, compared with Turkey neighborhood I agree. As Prince said, we need to dance as the music is playing...

2008 Aug 11 01:13 PM

[Seeking Dol...:]

Ricahard, you are one of the best authors and I learn a lot from your articles. Your explanation about the light weight nature of this article makes sense now. Keep up the good work.

2008 Aug 11 02:07 PM