We will start this commentary with an excerpt from “Hearts and Bones,” a famous Paul Simon song of the early 1980s. At the end is a link to a YouTube of the song and a detailed explanation of how the song and its album came about.
And whoa-oh-oh, she said: “Why? Why don’t we drive through the night We’ll wake up down in Mexico” Oh, I, I don’t know nothin’ about, nothin’ about no Mexico “And tell me why, why won’t you love me for who I am, where I am?” He said, “‘Cause that’s not the way the world is, baby This is how I love you, baby This is how I love you, baby”
Mexico. A remarkable political change yields a government where women head the branches and the presidency and fill other roles. Shortly after Claudia Sheinbaum was elected as the nation’s first woman president, another woman was murdered while in her capacity as mayor of a Mexican city. As Paul Simon sang with a warning 40 years ago, “This is how I love you, baby.” There’s more in the reading list below on Mexico, India, South Africa, and others. But first the portfolio disclosures. Questions can be directed to Matt McAleer.
“Cumberland’s Mexico weight in the international ETF portfolio was changed in response to events. Here’s the summary from our ETF research staff. (For details, contact Matt McAleer.)
The Mexico-specific ETF we used in our international model is EWW; it has been sold. We also pick up very small weight in ILF & a couple other positions. The country breakdowns at end of Q1 were at about 2.4% total exposure for Global & 6% for International. Mexico weight is much lower today. The benchmarks are S&P Global BMI/ex-US, but we typically compare to ACWI/X. Both of those ETFs had Mexico at under 1% at the end of the first quarter.
India. No changes occurred this week in the positions held by Cumberland. Cumberland’s position per our staff:
INDA is the India ETF we hold but we also pick up in SPEM, ACWX, etc. End of Q1 total weight in country breakdowns was 3% for Global & 7.5% International. ACWI/X was 1.7% & 4.8% respectively.
See reading list for analysis of Modi election results.
South Africa. Staff reports:
We do not currently hold a position in South Africa in the model; however, the country ETF we’ve used in the past is EZA. From a broad standpoint, the country breakdowns had both our Global & International strategies and ACWI/X exposure at under 1%.
As of 5/31/2024, The International ETF portfolio sector breakdown is as follows.
Before we tune into Paul Simon, let’s add an interview with Ian Bremmer, which he posted on X. Ian talks about the options of the United States and the impact our divisive politics are having on our relations with the other countries around the world.
On the day after the election, Kathleen Hays was kind enough to invite me to interview with my initial thoughts about the election outcome as we knew it to be then. I subsequently published a transcript of the interview and the link to Kathleen’s Substack.
We wish all readers a safe and successful Thanksgiving weekend. We’re about to enter the ‘’lame duck” congressional session. Will we have 3 weeks of chaos or clarity?
On Sunday, October 27, 2024, I cited the evolution of history in the WW2 era, in the 1930s and the 1940s, and got a lot of responses (“A History Lesson?” https://kotokreport.com/a-history-lesson/). We thank readers for those responses.
One astute reader had a sensible question about my October 27th missive. He asked, how could Stalin’s divisions that he sent into Germany have been combat-trained against the Japanese when the dates don’t work?
Contact David
David would love to hear from you. Please Feel free to reach out and send an email.
