THE WINNERS OF THE 2021 COUNTRY STOCK MARKET COMPETITION

BOSTON, MA – 01/07/2022 – Vitaly Veksler, CEO and Portfolio Manager at Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS), commented on the performance of the “Top 3” country indices leading in terms of total returns during the last week of December 2021. These indices included the MSCI United Arab Emirates (UAE) Index, MSCI Austria Index, and MSCI Saudi Arabia. The report focuses on four factors that explained the performance of these indices during the last week of the year. They included the oil price increases, strong earnings growth momentum, high index valuations, and COVID-19 case increases. The report’s readers will also learn some general statistics about the 2021 performance of 50 indices in BBIS’ universe. For example, they will know what number of country indices had positive returns and how many indices beat the assumed expectations rate of return of the US defined-benefits retirement plans in 2021.
 
The report focuses on other topics that may be of interest to the report’s readers:

• The reason why earnings forward estimates are important for country selection in equity investing even though the estimates are often coincidental or lagging indicators, not leading indicators, for the stock indices’ returns. The explanation fuses concepts from the investment world and the technology adoption life cycle model.
• Two major factors that heavily impacted the stock index performance in 2021: robust commodity price increases and quantitative easing (QE) programs. Specifically, the report focuses on the QE prospects in the Eurozone in 2022. The report also references Vitaly’s earlier report on the QE tapering in the US and its impact on the global stock market leadership.
• Why MSCI Austria Index has a high correlation with oil prices despite Austria being just the 74th largest oil producer globally.

 
To read the full report in PDF format, please Click Here
 
Congratulations to the winners of the 2021 competition and investors who held ETFs benchmarked to the winning indices!
 
Please let me know if you have any questions about BBIS or the firm’s investment strategies, would like to be on our publication distribution list, or want to invest some funds with BBIS.
 
Thank you.
 
Best regards,
Vitaly Veksler, CFA
CEO & Portfolio Manager
Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC
vveksler@bbistrategies.com

​PERFORMANCE TABLES
 TOTAL RETURNS = PRICE APPRECIATION + DIVIDENDS

Sources: Refinitiv, Beyond Borders Investment Strategies (BBIS). Used MSCI country index performance for 48 countries - all but the US. The US performance is represented by MSCI USA and S&P 500 indices. All performance series measure total returns of US Dollar-denominated indices.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this report are of BBIS and are for information purposes only. This report does not represent investment advice. BBIS holds investment positions in single-country equity ETFs of some or all countries mentioned in the report. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.