Courtesy of Doug Short
What a difference a week makes! All the markets made substantial gains, and some more than made up for last week’s loss. Since Friday, March 11th, the Bombay SENSEX is up 3.53%, the Shanghai 1.50%, the FTSE 1.24%, and the S&P 500 is up 0.73%. The DAX and Hang Seng are down fractionally over the same time frame, -0.50% and -0.39% respectively.
The Nikkei, on the other hand, despite a strong week of recovery, is down 7.00% since the March 11 close and down 8.61% since the day before the tragic earthquake.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of the current weekly performance table with the one from last week.
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 (Shanghai, Bombay, Hang Seng) is readily apparent. However the pattern has been less apparent over the past few months.
