Market Summary — 15 October

Many forces are at work that could result in a correction for U.S. markets: uncertainty around the trajectory of the pandemic; the worrisome prospect of a contested presidential election; and typical seasonal weakness.  And yet, as we write, the S&P 500 remains near an all-time high.  Why?  The investment backdrop Read more

India: Manufacturing Destination

Last week we reported about two large stakes taken in Indian telecom giant Reliance Jio by U.S. investors.  Their interest focused particularly on the Indian consumer, one of the world’s great untapped consumer markets.  Jio’s aggressive rollout of cheap internet service and mobile devices to currently unconnected Indians attracted a Read more

U.S. Firms See Opportunity in India

India continues to attract investment from U.S. tech and e-commerce firms.  In 2018, Walmart [NYSE: WMT] acquired India’s biggest domestic e-commerce firm, Flipkart.  Amazon [NASDAQ:  AMZN] has said that it is investing $5 billion in India.  Now two U.S. entities — Facebook [NASDAQ:  FB] and Silver Lake, a private equity Read more

India: Near-Term Pain, Long-Term Gain

Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Jannata Party [BJP] took the reins of India’s government in May, 2014.  Since then, we’ve been bullish on the long-term opportunity that would be presented by India’s emergence from the corruption and business-hostile governance of many of its 20th century rulers.  Some readers may have Read more

Emerging Markets Beyond China

Emerging Markets Beyond China:  Reforms and Opportunities in India and Brazil Six weeks ago in these pages, we wrote that 2019 might be the year during which emerging markets finally begin to outperform.  We argued that after a decade of emerging-market underpeformance, global investment flows would begin favoring EM assets Read more