A Year in Stocks

The US stock markets bottomed on March 6, 2009. It is surprising to see what has really taken place over the past year. We looked at the performance in local currency terms to keep a cleaner read.

Among the G5 equity markets, the US S&P 500 was the clear winner advancing 68.4%. Both German's Dax and the UK's FTSE were up almost 60% (59.2% and 58.0% respectively). France and Japan trailed (55% and 49% respectively). However, if the universe were expanded slightly to the G7, Italy's FTSE MIB Index takes first place with a 77% increase. Canada's TSE rose 57.7%, in the neighborhood of Germany and the UK and better than the another "commodity" country bourse--S&P/ASX200 in Australia, which has risen almost 53%.

The BRICS did well, but not quite what some would have imagined. Over the past 52 weeks, China's Shanghai is actually the worst performing of this universe, rising about 45%. Unbeknownst to many the US S&P 500 actually outperformed the Shanghai since the bottom a year ago. Brazil's 88.7% gain puts it in third place among the BRICS. India's Sensex 30 has risen almost 109%, while second place goes to Russia's MICEX 104.5% increase.