Markets
Visualizing the Global Weapons Trade
The Global Weapons Trade
To see the full version of this visualization click here.
The above visualization sums up the global weapons trade during the Obama era, minus data from 2016. It was created by data scientist Hai Nguyen Mau, and each relationship plots the value of the weapons trade between two countries based on data from SIPRI.
It’s important to note that while this data includes major weaponry transfers such as tanks, jets, missiles, and ships, it excludes guns and ammunition or military aid. Lastly, the thickness of each line represents the total value of each trade relationship, while the proximity of two linked countries shows how close each relationship is. (i.e. if a country only imports from Russia, they will be much closer to Russia than the U.S.)
A Longtail Distribution
The global weapons trade is dominated by a few major exporters, such as United States, EU, and Russia:
Together, the United States, European Union, and Russia combine for over 80% of weapons exports, while the rest of the world fills out the “longtail” of the exporter distribution.
From the perspective of imports, the field is much more equal because almost every country aims to spend at least some money on defense. India is the largest importer of weapons in the world with a 14% share of the market.
Two Distinct Blocs
The picture behind the global weapons trade gets much more interesting as it is broken up into relationships. It’s easy to see that there are two distinct blocs of trade:
The West: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, most of the EU, and other countries
The East: Russia, China, India, Nigeria, and other countries
As an example, Singapore imports 71% of its weapons from the United States along with significant amounts from Germany (10%) and Sweden (6%). As such, it is very close to the United States in these visualizations.
Meanwhile, India imports 70% of its arms from Russia, with the U.S. (12%) and Israel (7%) as other major partners.
Here’s another look from Hai Nguyen Mau that just focuses on U.S. and Russian relationships:
An oversimplication, to be sure – but these visualizations hint at the broader tensions that have recently surfaced to the forefront of geopolitical discourse.
Markets
Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?
We visualize the recent performance of the Magnificent Seven stocks, uncovering a clear divergence between the group’s top and bottom names.
Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
In this graphic, we visualize the year-to-date (YTD) performance of the “Magnificent Seven”, a leading group of U.S. tech stocks that gained prominence in 2023 as the replacement of FAANG stocks.
All figures are as of March 12, 2024, and are listed in the table below.
Rank | Company | YTD Change (%) |
---|---|---|
1 | Nvidia | 90.8 |
2 | Meta | 44.3 |
3 | Amazon | 16.9 |
4 | Microsoft | 12 |
5 | 0.2 | |
6 | Apple | -6.7 |
7 | Tesla | -28.5 |
From these numbers, we can see a clear divergence in performance across the group.
Nvidia and Meta Lead
Nvidia is the main hero of this show, setting new all-time highs seemingly every week. The chipmaker is currently the world’s third most valuable company, with a valuation of around $2.2 trillion. This puts it very close to Apple, which is currently valued at $2.7 trillion.
The second best performer of the Magnificent Seven has been Meta, which recently re-entered the trillion dollar club after falling out of favor in 2022. The company saw a massive one-day gain of $197 billion on Feb 2, 2024.
Apple and Tesla in the Red
Tesla has lost over a quarter of its value YTD as EV hype continues to fizzle out. Other pure play EV stocks like Rivian and Lucid are also down significantly in 2024.
Meanwhile, Apple shares have struggled due to weakening demand for its products in China, as well as the company’s lack of progress in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.
Investors may have also been disappointed to hear that Apple’s electric car project, which started a decade ago, has been scrapped.
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