Brazil

Soaring commodity prices and relative stability during global market turmoil has made Brazil the largest share of the MSCI Emerging Market Index, edging China out with a 14.95 per cent share (China holds 14.15 per cent share). While the Chinese stock markets have corrected, the Brazilian market, led by juggernauts Vale and Petrobras, remains high.

Snapshot asks, will commodity prices fall and cause a correction in Brazil's market or will they stay high enabling Brazil to sustain its current rise?

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), Co-Chair of New America's U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative comments on the ease with which Cuba's leaders can ignore America's unilateral trade embargo. From the Havana Note:

LET'S look at what Cuba is doing with regard to diversification. It’s darned smart.

Having experienced the Soviet withdrawal from their island—a move that impacted nearly every Cuban in some way—and the concomitant epiphany of the tragic downside of sole-source support, the Cuban leadership vowed never to repeat. As a result, today that leadership is diversifying its support by state and function. Spain, China, Germany Canada, Israel, Venezuela, Brazil, and others fill the former role and nickel, tobacco, oil, rum, tourism, and other trade the latter. Cuba will never be trapped again into reliance on one state or on one or two commodities or trade functions.