FLAX News and Press, Franklin FTSE Asia ex Japan From 07/26/22

As inflation raged, central banks accelerated the pace of monetary policy tightening, aiming to slow the growth of aggregate demand and calm price pressures. In response to persistently high inflation and an upward drift in long-run inflation expectations, central banks are accelerati...

Two opposing forces appear to be dominating the market currently, with investors polarized between recession fears and bargain hunting following this year’s large equity selloff. Investors priced in most central bank tightening and seem more confident with the inflation outlook...

An investment in Nigeria or Turkey clearly exposes a firm or investor to more risks than an otherwise similar investment in Germany or Canada, but why? While country risk has so many dimensions to it, there is correlation across the many dimensions, with corruption, poor legal protect...

The JPMorgan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index, compiled by S&P Global, nudged lower in June, down from 52.3 in May to 52.2, its lowest since August 2020. The global manufacturing PMI survey's Output Index, which acts as a reliable advance indicator of actual worldwide outp...

The rising economic weight of APAC has far-reaching economic implications, notably due to the growing economic importance of APAC consumer markets as drivers of world demand growth. The rapid growth of China's economy over the past two decades has been a major driving factor for the i...

Worsening consumer and business sentiment, increased inflation, and central banks moving to tighten monetary policy, with the US Federal Reserve being the most aggressive, have increased the risk of a global recession. When China imposed widespread lockdowns in April in pursuit of its...

Two-plus years into the pandemic, nobody wants to hear the word Covid anymore. Covid-19 case waves significantly improved in April and May across most global regions. Global markets navigated formidable crosscurrents over the past year—high inflation, supply chain bottlenec...

Consumer goods industries remain hamstrung by supply chain bottlenecks, soaring costs, and the shift in spending toward services, reporting only modest growth in May to contribute to a broader manufacturing malaise. Global economic growth continued to be fueled first and foremost by r...

The new export orders index from S&P Global's PMI business surveys tracks foreign demand for both goods and services. In a manufacturing company, goods exports are readily quantified as those to be shipped to non-domestic customers. After the initial pandemic downturn in deman...

As we entered 2022, many emerging markets were already hurting due to higher commodity prices and rising interest rates; then a war in eastern Europe sent shock waves through the markets. The conflict in Ukraine likely bodes poorly for Eastern Europe more broadly, expanding beyond Rus...