Brazil is showing a pulse, economically and politically, after a calamitous collision with Covid-19. But the beat looks too faint to power much of a recovery in a depressed stock market. The iShares Brazil MSCI exchange-traded fund is off 30% this year, while global emerging markets are nearly back to even. The Latin American giant has rebounded better than expected over the past two months, driven by consumer spending. David Beker, chief Latin American economist at Bank of America, has...

Markets reacted calmly to the Trump Administration’s latest escalation in its war on Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Maybe too calmly. will in theory prevent Huawei from buying any equipment or software containing any U.S.-originated inputs, without a case-by-case license. That’s kind of a big deal, you might think. The Shenzhen-based powerhouse vies with Samsung Electronics as a top global handset producer, and has poll position in 5G technology. It’s a major customer for leading tech names...

Internet stocks in emerging markets have more or less kept pace with developed-market peers during the great rebound of spring 2020. Emerging market health-care stocks , though, are kicking butt. The KraneShares Emerging Markets Healthcare Index exchange-traded fund (ticker: KMED) is up 25% year to date. Equivalent funds tracking the U.S. health-care and pharmaceutical industries are down slightly. Long-term growth prospects explain part of the performance. China spends about $400 per capita...

But Beijing quickly signaled that it had learned its lesson from that wrenching cycle. The following day, the Securities Journal clarified that equity valuations should be “reasonable.” Two official actions promptly followed, notes Wenli Zheng, a portfolio manager for Asian small-cap stocks at T. Rowe Price. Securities regulators tightened margin requirements for certain brokerages, while the People’s Bank of China hinted at tapering pandemic-related monetary stimulus. Zheng expects “total...

Vietnam is a bundle of contradictions for investors. Economically, the country is an all-star. Growth was cruising around 7% annually before this year. Exports are climbing the value chain from apparel to electronics. The population of 100 million is young, educated, and urbanizing at a rate around 1 million a year. Governance-wise, Vietnam is a mess. Foreign stock ownership is capped. Arcane trading bottlenecks choke liquidity and elevate prices well above what’s listed on the exchange....