Gavekal Capital: Catching Up With Performance

Monday, August 25, 2014

Catching Up With Performance

It's time for our weekly ritual of looking back before we look too far forward. Where has it paid to be invested and where has it not? Let's start with the Developed Markets.

The Pharmaceuitcal Biotech Industry has been the top performer with gains of 14.5% so far year-to-date. Five of the 24 industries have reached double-digit percentage returns this years with the average industry gaining about 5%. Only five industries are stuck in negative territory and only one, Diversified Financials, are down over 1% year-to-date. The top performing individual stock in US Dollar returns comes to us from Japn. Seiko Epson Corporation, an electronics company, has gained over 86% year-to-date. The worst performing indivudual stock is out of the UK. ASOS, a British online retailer, is down over 64% year-to-date. The top 10 best and worst performing stocks are listed below (Figure 2 and Figure 3).

Figure 1
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Figure 2
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Figure 3
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Moving on to the Emerging Markets, the Media industry is by far and away the best performing industry so far this year. It is nearly 44% higher than it was at the beginning of the year. Two other industries, Consumer Services and Household & Personal Products, have both gained over 30% in US Dollar terms. Only one industry in the Emerging Markets, Food & Staples Retailing, is not in positive territory year-to-date. The average industry in the Emerging Markets has gained nearly 13% year-to-date.

Figure 4
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Figure 5
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Figure 6
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