Markets

The World’s Most Respected ‘Made In’ Labels

Published

6 years ago

October 20, 2017

Jeff Desjardins

The World's Most Respected 'Made In' Labels, by Country

The World’s Most Respected ‘Made In’ Labels

Countries with the best reputations among consumers.

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

When you look at the tag of your shirt, and it says “Made in Bangladesh”, what does it mean to you?

For most people, a reputation for each country exists in their brains. The same Bangladeshi shirt coming instead from Germany or Brazil could evoke different perceptions to a consumer – and in aggregate, these views have a substantial impact on the success of goods in international markets.

The Most Respected Countries

Today’s chart shows survey results from 43,034 people in 52 countries on their perceptions of products from various countries of origin. According to Statista, which compiled the Made-in-Country-Index (MICI), each person assessed three countries to give a total of 129,102 individual assessments.

Here are the 10 jurisdictions that rated the highest on the list – we’ve also included each country’s top export for additional reference:

Rank	Jurisdiction	Consumer Perception Index	Top Export
#1	Germany	100	Vehicles
#2	Switzerland	98	Gold
#3	European Union	92	N/A
#4	United Kingdom	91	Vehicles
#5	Sweden	90	Vehicles
#6	Canada	85	Vehicles
#7	Italy	84	Medicine
#8	Japan	81	Vehicles
#9	France	81	Aircraft
#10	United States	81	Refined Oil

European countries generally had the best track record in the minds of consumers, with Germany taking the #1 spot overall and Switzerland following close behind.

Made in the USA

Although the United States ranked #10 after countries like Germany, Japan, Sweden, and Canada, we can still dive a little deeper yet.

In the same survey, Americans were specifically asked about the categories of goods for which they thought the U.S. was a “strong production country”. Here are the results:

Made in the USA

Interestingly, according to 62% of these 1,018 respondents, the good that is best labeled “Made in America” is clothing. While the domestic industry has certainly been dealing with challenges on the business side, it appears American-made clothing is still coveted by consumers when it can be done right.

Related Topics:united states exports countries germany made in goods reputation

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Technology

Just 20 Stocks Have Driven S&P 500 Returns So Far in 2023

From Apple to NVIDIA, megacap stocks are fueling S&P 500 returns. The majority of these firms are also investing heavily in AI.

Creator Program

Published

4 days ago

May 24, 2023

Dorothy Neufeld

Just 20 Stocks Have Driven Most of S&P 500 Returns

Just 20 firms—mainly AI-related stocks—are propping up the S&P 500 and driving it into positive territory, signaling growing risk in the market.

The above graphic from Truman Du shows which stocks are making up the vast majority of S&P 500 returns amid AI market euphoria and broader market headwinds.

Big Tech Stock Rally

Tech and AI stocks have soared as ChatGPT became a household name in 2023.

The below table shows data from last month, highlighting that just a small collection of companies drove most of the action on the U.S. benchmark index.

Company Rank	Name	Contribution to S&P 500 Return	Average Weight
1	Apple	1.49%	6.61%
2	Microsoft	1.15%	5.72%
3	NVIDIA	1.00%	1.62%
4	Meta	0.66%	1.15%
5	Amazon	0.51%	2.56%
6	Tesla	0.50%	1.39%
7	Alphabet (Class A Shares)	0.34%	1.72%
8	Alphabet (Class C Shares)	0.31%	1.53%
9	Salesforce	0.19%	0.51%
10	Advanced Micro Devices	0.16%	0.39%
11	General Electric	0.10%	0.28%
12	Visa	0.10%	1.08%
13	Broadcom	0.09%	0.73%
14	Intel	0.09%	0.35%
15	Walt Disney	0.08%	0.55%
16	Booking Holdings	0.07%	0.28%
17	Exxon Mobil	0.06%	1.37%
18	Netflix	0.06%	0.44%
19	Oracle	0.06%	0.40%
20	Adobe	0.06%	0.49%
	Top 20 Companies	7.05%	29.17%
	S&P 500*	7.55%	100.00%

*Based on the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF as of April 11, 2023. Source: Vanguard S&P500 ETF, Bloomberg.

Microsoft invested $10 billion into OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT. It has also integrated generative AI into its search engine Bing. This large language model is designed specifically to make search capabilities faster, generate text, and perform other automations.

Also of interest is NVIDIA, which is the most valuable chipmaker in America. It sells $10,000 chips called A100s that allow machine learning models to run. These models perform multiple tasks simultaneously to develop neural networks and train AI systems, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Companies that are developing AI-related services, such as chatbots or image generation, may use up to thousands of these chips.

Despite being the world’s most valuable company and a key driver of returns, Apple is an outlier among tech giants with no major projects announced in AI (so far).

Implications of Market Divergence

The problem with the strong gains seen in a few select AI-related stocks is that it clouds wider stock market performance.

Without the AI-led rally, the S&P 500 would be returning -1.4%. as of May 17, 2023.

4. AI is fueling the stock market

A handful of stocks are spearheading the S&P 500's impressive 9% rally this year.

Here’s the kicker: if you excluded AI stocks, the S&P 500 would be down over 1% (according to Societe Generale). pic.twitter.com/SME1mJVpoW

— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) May 22, 2023

This form of steep divergence, known as market breadth, often signals higher risk in the market.

When more companies experience positive returns it is less risky than a small handful seeing the majority of the gains. Today market breadth is very narrow, and these companies make up over 29% of the entire index’s market capitalization.

How long AI-related firms mask the broader performance of the S&P 500 remains to be seen. A growing number of market pressures, from higher interest rates to banking uncertainty could add further challenges.