Expat Financial Planning 
Make Better Financial Planning Decisions
We provide and promise spam free updates for readers looking for clear, concise news and opinions on a range of investment and finaancial protection issues.
Global Investment MattersExamining Equity Markets
The Benefits Of
'Global Investment Matters'
Each week "Global Investment Matters" focuses on a specific investment related topic that is likely to influence the returns on your investment portfolio outcomes.
The content is written by top level investment fund managers and provides clues to the issues that they are addressing in constructing client mandates and portfolios that span all asset classes.
The insights provided are an invaluable asset in themselves and are designed to help investors understand and rationalise the investment world around them helping with their own financial plans.
Subscribe to the FREE Global Investment Matters - we are certain you will find it beneficial to help shape your own investment decisions when confronting the stock markets.
This weekWhy Investment Analysis Is Essentialby Mark Wright CFA
Understanding how to unveil investment opportunities through analysis
❝
We often find the best opportunities present themselves when others are fearful
❞
Market SnapshotsMarch 14 2023
• Global equities fell 3.6% last week
• The Federal Reserve and Treasury announced emergency measures to protect the US banking system as three US financial institutions failed in the past week including the sixteenth largest US bank, Silicon Valley Bank
• Brent crude fell by 3.6% to $82.78 per barrel
• Gold rose by 0.6% to $1868.26 per ounce
Key Global Market Developments
• US equities returned -4.5% last week
• The New York Fed Global Supply Chain Pressure Index fell below its long-term historical average in February for the first time since August 2019
• Initial jobless claims came in at 211k over the week ending March 4 (vs. 195k expected), the highest level so far in 2023
• The quits rate of those voluntarily leaving their jobs (which is strongly correlated with wage growth) fell to its lowest level in almost two years, at 2.5%
• UK equities returned -2.4% last week
• UK Gross Domestic Product growth for January came in higher than expected at 0.3% (vs. 0.1% expected)
• HSBC emerged as the leading white-knight bidder as it paid a symbolic £1 for the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank in a fire-sale facilitated by the UK Treasury and the Bank of England
• European equities returned -2.1% last week
• Euro Area economy didn’t grow at all in Q4 of last year, contrary to previous estimates that there’d be a +0.1% expansion
• Euro Area retail sales grew by +0.3% in January, which was a bit beneath the +0.6% expected)
• Robert Holzmann one of the biggest hawks on the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said he assumed “that core inflation will not weaken significantly in the first half of the year”
• Global emerging market equities returned -3.3% last week
• Japanese equities rose by 0.6% last week
• Chinese inflation came in weaker than expected with consumer prices up by +1.0% in the year to February (vs. +1.9% expected)
• The Bank of Japan (BOJ) left its key interest rate unchanged at -0.1%, while maintaining its yield curve control policy
• China’s exports in the first two months of 2023 were stronger than expected, dropping -6.8% from a year before (vs. -9.4% expected)
