Earlier today we looked at US sector weightings, and below we take a look at the percentage of total world stock market cap that the largest countries make up.  As shown below, the US and Japan, which were the two largest stock markets at the start of the year, have added to their percentage of world market cap so far this year at the expense of pretty much everyone else.  

Viral Acharya, Sascha Steffen, 23 May 2013A pernicious aspect of the Eurozone crisis is the ‘doom loop’ linking European banks and governments. This column argues that poor European policy choices in the wake of the 2008 Global Crisis worsened the problem. Rather than being forcefully recapitalising as in the US and UK, many Eurozone banks were left undercapitalised and free to gamble for redemption. In what may be the greatest carry trade ever, they borrowed cheap, first in short-term debt markets and then from the ECB, to invest in high-yield but risky sovereign debt.

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Following on previous reports, here’s another article reviewing the heavy toll the wind industry is taking on endangered raptors like bald and golden eagles and the California condor. While the fossil fuel industry is prosecuted and heavily fined for impacts … Continue reading ?