Interesting scale. Spainโs +61% bar is 7 times the length of the USโs +13% bar
this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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great catch. could be logarithmic? in any case it's definitely making the gap appear much larger
Funny how the right loves to claim โtheyโre the best with moneyโ when one of the rare current leftist countries in Europe performs best here.
Look at any graph of GDP, cost of living, inflation, or anything else economic other than rich peoples' bank accounts, and they do better under non-right-wing governments
Hell, even "rich people's bank accounts" are doing better under left-wing govdrnments, as they don't need to hire expensive security guards due to civil unrest and inequality.
investing in your own country works? who would have guessed
Huh, odd that Denmark is doing meh there. If there's a country I'd think better to invest in, it's them.
Probably the ozempic boom, that has now died down a bit.
We are basically owned by Novo Nordisk here, and their stock just tanked.
Incidentally it is mainly caused by the US. Both Novo Nordisk and รrsted has had setbacks in the US (both on account of the Trump administration), causing their stocks to drop. It probably stems back to Trump being nasty to Danish companies on account of Greenland.
Itโs because Ozempic is so large that it going down distorts the entire graphic
Reminder that this is in USD. Is change in exchange rate accounted for?
Denominating everything in the same currency accounts for it.
No it doesn't.
Stocks are a measure of how much investors think the company can profit. If the value of the euro drops a EU stock won't suddenly shoot up to account for the change in exchange rate from EUR to USD. Same thing with U.S. stocks.
In fact the exchange value of the dollar is going way down so it's actually more reasonable to just use percentage change in listed currency.
You canโt compare countries in different currencies. Picking one numeraire is what makes it apples-to-apples, and FX is part of the real return.
Again. No.
If you used EUR for this comparison everything would be -10% or something
When you compare different countries, you have to look at returns in one currency. Otherwise the numbers arenโt comparable. FX moves are just part of the real return from a global perspective.
Put another way, suppose an American buys an Argentinian asset and then Argentina experiences 1000% inflation but the price of the asset goes up 900%. Are you telling me that you think the Argentinian stock market is doing great? The point of using the same unit across countries is to avoid this issue.
Otherwise the numbers arenโt comparable.
The statistic is comparing percentages, those dont have a currency.
Aa an exaggerated example: If you make a statistic about how much trees have grown in one year and they doubled in size everywhere, it doesnt matter if you measure in cm or inches. But if during that time someone redefines 1inch = 5cm and you only measure in inches, suddenly trees in metric countries didnt grow at all. Weird.
The inch/cm analogy only works if the conversion rate is fixed. Currencies arenโt like that. Their conversion rates change over time. That changing conversion is part of the return when you compare countries. Thatโs why you need to put everything in one currency first, then calculate the percent change.
Your analogy actually proves my point: if the โinchโ changes relative to the cm over time, then youโd have to convert all measurements to one unit before comparing how fast trees grow, even though the percent growth itself is unit-free.
The thing is that if Spanish stock is valued in euros first and then converted to USD, euro to USD ratio might be a big factor in that graph. Euro is above dollars usually but the current exchange rate is wild.
Yeah, but changes in exchange rates are part of the return of the asset. If I buy a Spanish stock from the US and the Euro appreciates then that means the Spanish stock performs better from a global perspective.
Yet the title of the image makes it seem like this is an internal country thing, "stocks have risen more rapidly in other European countries than in the us", then the subtitle corrects it, but the title is implying something different and not necessarily true.
Also, the BuyEuropean community is about European people buying stuff from Europe, not internationals investing in Europe instead of the US, so of your point is correct this post is sorta out of place here.
If you want to have a graph that shows the return on stocks across countries, which is what the title indicates, you have to convert everything to a single currency before calculating the percent changes. It doesn't matter which currency you choose either. It would make no sense to compare the percent changes without this conversion as then you wouldn't be measuring the real rate of return for the assets in each country.
Thinking of it as an internal thing doesn't make much sense to me as the graph draws a comparison across countries.
I don't understand how my point is out of place. I'm addressing the original question about whether exchange rates need to be accounted for.
I did not say post title, I said image title. In any case, the data makes sense, it's just a misrepresentation of the country as a whole because it's not data that's that useful to those living in there.
My first reaction was to interpret the graph as "if you lived there, your stuff would gain value this much faster" but then realised it was literally "if you invested in stock from that country you would gain Y post conversion", so I felt it was a misleading post in a community with the spirit of buy local.
Both titles are accurate.
Even for people living in the country, local-currency returns can be misleading. If your stock goes up 10% but your currency falls 15%, your global purchasing power is down. Thatโs why exchange rate-adjusted returns matter whether youโre local or international. It measures your real return.
Whether the post fits in this community or not, idk, but the comment I replied to asked an economic question about exchange rates.
Not really unfortunately. Suppose I bought a share for 100โฌ, which went up to 200โฌ by now. Thats a 100% increase. But if the USD-EUR ratio went up by 100% as well so that my say 104$ share is still worth 104$, the graph would show a 0% increase. In reality, I made a 100% profit. Now of course when considering all stocks, not individual ones, this becomes more complicated but why would using a single currency for this statistic be necessary?
Edit: I see now, the graph is meant to be from a US investors perspective. Title is pretty misleading in that case.
Hah denmark and norway behind sweden /s
So right around when the tariff bullshit kicked in, I rebalanced the vast majority of my investments towards EU and APAC ETFs and securities. I have been beating USD inflation quite handily, with a decent margin to spare.