Markets end of week

Marijuana Use and Cannabis Industry Statistics

Markets end of week

McDonald's revenues & currency wars

Seems collapsed McDonald's revenues just an effect of "currency wars". Currencies were devaluated, Big Mac USD prices fell, revenues too, nothing special.

How many "Apples" in your country?

At the peak of the US corporate earnings reporting season, Apple Inc. reported record revenue and profit for the 4th quarter of 2014 calendar year (or Q1 2015 fiscal year which began in the US in October 2014). Now the Apple Inc. has market capitalization of about 640 billion dollars, which is larger than the GDP of such countries as Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Venezuela, Algeria and many others (painted in shades of red on the map). US and China are as large as 27-28 AAPL's market caps. India is about 11 "Apples". Japan is 7.5 and the Germany is 5.7 only.

2014 fiscal year was finished with another all-time high in overall corporate profits, both in nominal terms and relative to GDP. Since the end of last recession, profits provide significant contribution to overall US GDP growth. But is this situation any sustainable and just how long it may last? Maybe present year will bring some answers.

Check the graphs below the page to see how US corporate profits evolved over time. You also can note that corporate profits declines for 2 or more quarters tend to precede recessions (see barchart at the bottom).

Markets end of week

World markets and currencies performance, 2014

    2014 was a challenging year for world markets and for world currencies too. Almost every currency in the world was devalued (more or less) compared to US dollar. Russian ruble (-42%) and Ukraine hryvnia (-47.5%) became "champions" (due to political conflict between those states). UK Pound Sterling and Pakistani Rupee were the strongest. Among the developed markets US was the best (+12.8% price return year-to-date). European markets were, mainly, disappointing (in USD terms, at least). In the emerging world Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Philippines, Kenya, India, Argentina and some other markets showed exciting 2-digits growth. The worst was, again, Russia (45% loss but in USD terms only).