Doug Short | Nov 26, 2012 12:17AM ET
All eight of the indexes on our world market watch list closed the week last week with a gain. In fact, the average gain o the eight at 3.41% is the biggest weekly increase of 2012. The three EU indexes were the top performers, with France's CAC 40 and Germany's DAXK rising more than five percent (5.60% and 5.16% respectively).
The next four indexes, lead by the FTSE 100, finished the week with gains in the top half of the three percent range. Even China's last-place Shanghai was up a respectable 0.63%.
In recent weeks I've pointed out the high volatility of these world indexes. Here is a snapshot of the weekly average of the eight for the past nine weeks:
A Closer Look at the Last Four Weeks
The tables below provide a concise overview of performance comparisons over the past four weeks for these eight major indexes. I've also included the average for each week so that we can evaluate the performance of a specific index relative to the overall mean and better understand weekly volatility. The colors for each index name help us visualize the comparative performance over time.
Here is the same chart starting from the turn of 21st century. The relative over-performance of the emerging markets (Shanghai, Mumbai SENSEX, Hang Seng) is readily apparent, especially the SENSEX, but the trend over the past two years has not been their friend (make that three years for the Shanghai).
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