The forces. Not the headlines.
Analysis and commentary on markets, companies, and the forces that move them.
Brazil: Commodity Cycle and Real Yields
Brazilian equity performance is dominated by two overlapping cycles — commodities and real interest rates. Understanding both is essential to reading the market coherently.
Canada's Market: Banks, Energy, and Concentration
An examination of how Canada's equity market concentrates around financials and energy, and what that structure means for global portfolio construction.
Mexico: Nearshoring and the Manufacturing Rebound
Mexico's manufacturing sector has been transformed by the nearshoring trend — the reorganisation of global supply chains toward geographic proximity to end markets. Understanding the pattern is essential to any coherent view of Latin American markets.
Korea: Chaebol Discount and Value Up Program
Korean equities have historically traded at a persistent discount to comparable Asian markets. The 'Value Up' corporate governance program launched in 2024 is the most-significant policy attempt in decades to close the gap.
South Africa's JSE and Its Dual Economy
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange blends globally exposed conglomerates with domestic cyclicals, creating a market that often trades independently of its own economy.
Taiwan: The TSMC Concentration Problem
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company represents roughly a third of the TWII index by itself. This concentration is the defining feature of the Taiwan equity market — both its opportunity and its risk.
Australia's Market: Banks, Miners and Super Flows
How compulsory pension savings, bank concentration and iron ore exposure combine to make the Australian equity market unlike its economy.
India: Demographics, Domestic Flows, and Nifty
The Indian equity market has been transformed over the past decade by a specific structural change: the emergence of large-scale domestic investor participation that has fundamentally altered the market's liquidity profile.
The UK Market: FTSE 100's Global Revenue Base
The FTSE 100 is often called 'the UK market,' but roughly three-quarters of its aggregate revenue comes from outside the UK. Reading it as a domestic bet is the most common mistake in analysing it.
Europe: The DAX, ECB, and Structural Growth Gap
European equities have lagged US equities for two decades. The reasons run deeper than earnings — they touch demographics, energy policy, and the structure of the ECB itself.
Japan: TOPIX Reflation and the End of ZIRP
After two decades of near-zero rates, Japan is normalising monetary policy while corporate reform quietly transforms the equity market. The two shifts explain most of TOPIX's return this decade.
What Global Diversification Actually Reduces
Global diversification is widely recommended, and which risk it actually reduces, and which it cannot, is frequently glossed over. Understanding that distinction precisely is the precondition for using diversification correctly.
Differences in Disclosure Quality Across Markets
The information companies disclose differs greatly across countries in quality, frequency and reliability. That difference directly affects the basis for investment judgement, and it is frequently underestimated.
Comparing Transaction Costs Across Markets
Trading in different countries' markets can carry costs that differ by an order of magnitude, and most of these costs do not appear in the quoted price. Their cumulative effect on long-run returns frequently exceeds what investors expect.
The Liquidity Reality of Frontier Markets
Frontier markets have a presence in indices and reporting that far exceeds their actual investability. The core of that gap is liquidity, and understanding the reality of liquidity matters more than assessing these markets' growth stories.
How Index Providers Move Billions
Index providers do not manage money, and their decisions nonetheless direct hundreds of billions of dollars. That influence comes from the growth of passive investing, and its workings have several details worth understanding.
Retail Share and Volatility Characteristics Across Markets
The proportion of retail trading in a market affects its short-term price behaviour and volatility characteristics. This structural difference explains why the intraday behaviour of some markets differs so noticeably from others.
The Dollar Cycle and Emerging Markets
The dollar's cycle of strength and weakness affects emerging markets more than most local factors do. The linkage runs through several specific channels, and their force differs across individual emerging markets.
The Drivers of Cross-Border Capital Flows
Cross-border capital flows can be large enough to dominate a market's short-term direction, and a substantial part of what drives them sits outside that market. Understanding these drivers helps separate local information from external capital.
How Cross-Market Correlation Changes in a Crisis
The benefit of diversification rests on markets being imperfectly correlated. That correlation rises during crises, so the protection weakens at exactly the moment it is most needed.
Why Sector Composition Differs So Much Across Markets
Two countries of similar economic size can have entirely different sector compositions in their equity markets. That difference affects the validity of cross-country comparison, and its causes do not fully match the structure of the economy itself.
How Pension Systems Shape Local Markets
A country's pension system determines how long-term capital enters the market, and that profoundly influences the structure, depth and volatility of the local market. The factor is slow and durable, and it is frequently overlooked.
The Size of Global Bond Markets and Its Effect on Equities
The global bond market is larger than the global equity market, and most investors allocate their attention the other way around. The state of the bond market affects equities through several channels, and understanding those channels is more useful than remembering the size.
The Cyclicality of Commodity Exporter Markets
Economies built on resource exports produce equity markets with stronger cyclical characteristics than most. The source and amplitude of that cycle determine the role such markets play in a global allocation.