Courtesy of Doug Short
Here is the latest weekend snapshot of seven major world indexes. The picture is somewhat distorted by the fact that two of the seven were on holiday during much of the week. A combination of the Lunar New Year and Ching Ming Festival closed the Shanghai Wednesday through Friday and the Hang Seng Thursday and Friday.
The S&P 500 and DAX ended the week with new interim highs. In fact all the markets saw major gains except the Bombay SENSEX, which closed at a new low, 14.27% off the all-time high set last November.
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. However the pattern shown a reversal over the past few months.
