BKF News and Press, iShares MSCI BRIC Index Fund From 04/29/21

With greater clarity on the sustainability of the economic recovery, we also saw the opportunity set across markets broaden to include sectors beyond those seen as the primary beneficiaries of an economic reopening. As expected, the recovery hasn't been smooth sailing for all, with su...

The pace of recovery has begun to diverge across economies, with vaccination progress and the scale of government stimulus among the biggest swing factors. Macro disparities have also begun filtering into EPS growth expectations. Cyclically sensitive sectors have dominated the upg...

Brazil Services PMI slipped into a recessionary territory in 1Q 2021, falling from 4Q 2020 reading of 51.4 to 46.1 in 1Q 2021. Russia Services PMI rebounded robustly from 4Q 2020 reading of 47.7 to 1Q 2021 reading of 53.6. India Services PMI improved from growth-signaling 53.4 in ...

We expected BRIC countries PMIs to improve significantly in 1Q 2021 compared to 4Q 2020. However, just the opposite took place. Brazil and India were the two BRIC economies that managed to outperform global manufacturing sector growth in 1Q 2021, which came in at 54.1, up on 53.5 ...

We believe the Brazilian bond market has overpriced policy tightening over the next 12 to 18 months. Real rates will likely remain quite low for some time given the protracted post-COVID recovery and available spare capacity in the economy. While Brazil is among the first major EM...

Stocks in emerging markets continued to lead the major asset classes in January as the top monthly performer. Emerging markets shares have been up for four straight months, pushing this slice of the world's equities to a wide one-year lead of nearly 28%. US stocks are posting the ...

The spread of coronavirus is the most important theme impacting the global foreign exchange market right now. Broad economic recovery should begin in the second half of 2021. The Swiss franc and New Zealand dollar look "overvalued." Conversely, the Canadian dollar is the most ...

Brazil Composite PMI rose from 51.6 in 3Q 2020 to 54.4 in 4Q 2020, marking a second consecutive quarter of >50.0 readings. Russia Composite PMI is in a contraction territory, with a 4Q 2020 reading of 47.7, down from 55.9 in 3Q 2020. India Composite PMI rose from 45.9 in 3Q 202...

Brazil Services PMI rose from 47.5 in 3Q 2020 to 51.4 in 4Q 2020. Russia Services PMI crashed in the quarter from 56.8 in 3Q to 47.7. India Services PMI rose significantly in 4Q 2020 compared to 3Q 2020, from 41.9 to 53.4. China Services PMI rose for the third consecutive quar...

A long history of extremely low yields in Japan suggests that low yields do not necessarily map to low returns. Amid the dramatic sell-off in risk assets in March 2020 as the global pandemic took hold, and again in September 2020 when equity markets pulled back sharply, government bon...