Courtesy of Doug Short
Here’s the latest weekend snapshot of seven major world indexes. The Bombay SENSEX and Shanghai Composite again traded places at the extremes of weekly performance. Bombay was down a dismal 3.22% while the Shanghai finished up 1.38%. The S&P 500 and DAX both set interim highs on Thursday. But the Friday news from Egypt took its toll on market confidence generally in Europe and the U.S. Both the DAX and S&P 500 closed lower, with the latter slipping 1.79% for the day — the worst selloff in nearly six months.
The chart below illustrates the comparative performance of World Markets since March 9, 2009. The start date is arbitrary: The S&P 500 and Bombay SENSEX hit their lows on March 9th, the Nikkei 225 on March 10th, the DAX on March 6th, the FTSE on March 3rd, the Shanghai Composite on November 4, 2008, and the Hang Seng even earlier on October 27, 2008. However, by aligning on the same day and measuring the percent change, we get a better sense of the relative performance than if we align the lows.
A Longer Look Back
Here is the same chart starting from the turn of 21st century. The relative over performance of the emerging markets is readily apparent.
