With the economic changes instituted under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe since he took office in December 2012 slowly taking effect in Japan, companies are increasingly under pressure to deliver higher returns on equity for their investors. Financially, these companies are in an enviable position, with sufficient assets and cash on their balance sheets to be
We are getting more signs that there may be earnings disappointments on the horizon, but I believe investors are prepared for this. In fact, expectations were low coming into the third quarter, but I believe the market acknowledged that even if earnings were weak, valuations still weren’t stretched. Also worth noting is the fact that
European stocks may have a chance of recovery if political leaders can make progress on resolving the debt issue, but analyzing earnings will be critical for investors to navigate risk.
With its meteoric rise to become the world’s second-largest economy, China is an engine of global growth and is currently expanding much faster than developed nations still struggling to recover from the recession. Although today China is facing headwinds such as nagging inflation, Putnam sees investment opportunities in many industry sectors.
Over the next 10 years, some of the greatest growth in health-care spending is projected for emerging markets such as China, India, and Brazil. For many reasons, growth opportunities are abundant in developing economies, but selecting health-care stocks, particularly among the smaller-cap companies based in these regions, is not without its challenges.
With political unrest and natural disasters around the world in recent weeks, investors rushed to gold as a safe haven and sent prices soaring. But while investors choose gold for many reasons, they may find that some gold-mining companies are a more attractive investment than the bullion itself.
On March 20, AT&T announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest U.S. wireless carrier. This deal highlights the future investment potential unleashed by demand for mobile data.
The convergence of many types of high bandwidth content — especially video — on mobile devices, tablet computers, and Internet–connected television is generating rapid growth in data traffic on telecommunications networks. Forecasts suggest traffic may grow more than 30% annually over the next several years. Telecom companies may be able to translate data traffic into
While overall consumer spending continues to fluctuate this year between marginal growth and zero growth, luxury spending is experiencing a rebound. Often considered a harbinger for consumer spending in general, global luxury goods sales rose 15% in the first quarter of 2010 alone, compared with a year ago. And many individual luxury companies have reported