The Customers Live Elsewhere!

While we strive to maintain our focus herein on all things market and economic, every now and again we'll risk touching subscribers'/clients' nerves on topics that we believe impact/relate to markets and economics, but nonetheless spark ideologically-inspired rebuttals, if not rebukes (we're talking politics of course).

Well, on the topic of trade, we're willing to take the risk. In that we believe passionately that ever-freer trade (even unilateral) is far and away in the best interests (be they economic or national security) of us Americans.

As you may know, we maintain extensive ongoing records of the economic happenings the world over. This morning's headline below speaks to a good thing (doesn't hurt us when China and Australia come together on trade) and a potentially very bad thing, in our view (knowing our position, you'll gather what I mean from the headline):

Australia, China Seek to Boost Economic Ties as U.S. Pulls Back (Bloomberg) -- Australian and Chinese officials held talks in Beijing. The two nations worked across “a whole range of issues, starting off first and foremost with our combined commitments to grow our economies but also resisting against protectionism” 

You and I live in a country that represents merely 4% of the world's population. By some miracle, us Americans wield the world's largest economy by a wide margin. Make no mistake, our leadership in global trade is a huge, if not the hugest, reason we are where we are. 

Think of it this way, the largest company on the planet (Apple [a major component of your portfolio's tech exposure]) happens to be domiciled in the U.S., while 96% of its potential customers live outside U.S. borders. It's critical to Apple's success that America maintain growing, positive, mutually beneficial relationships with the countries that house the world's customers.

Oh, and same goes for the following:

Note: We deleted dozens (and dozens) of names between Qualcomm and Apple to save space:

COMPANY	PERCENTAGE OF REVENUE INTERNATIONAL
QUALCOMM	99
Royal Gold	98.2
Skyworks Solutions	98.1
Marvell Technology Group	97.8
Air Lease	95.1
Universal Display	94
Newmont Mining	93.7
Lam Research	91.6
Jabil Circuit	90.7
Cypress Semiconductor	89.6
Applied Materials	89.4
Nu Skin Enterprises	87.5
Texas Instruments	87.4
NVIDIA	86.9
Manpowergroup	85.6
ON Semiconductor	84.9
Coca-Cola	84.6
Micron Technology	84.5
Priceline Group	84.4
KLA-Tencor	82.5
Las Vegas Sands	81.9
Microchip Technology	81.2
Southern Copper	80.5
Platform Specialty Products	79.8
Colgate-Palmolive	79.1
Intel	78.2
Schlumberger	75.8
AGCO	75.6
BorgWarner	75.4
International Flavors & Fragrances	75.3
Tupperware Brands	75.2
AmTrust Financial Services	74.9
FMC	74.5
Mondelez International	73.2
National Oilwell Varco	73
Aflac	72.3
WR Grace	72.1
Corning	72
Wynn Resorts	72
Copa Holdings SA	71.2
Nabors Industries	71.1
Nordson	70.6
Albemarle	70.2
Western Union	69.2
Xilinx	68.6
Cognex	68.4
Mettler-Toledo International	67.5
Cavium	67.4
Mead Johnson Nutrition	66.8
Baker Hughes	66.7
McDonald's	66.5
Owens-Illinois	66.5
Diamond Offshore Drilling	65.8
Dow Chemical	65.5
Delphi Automotive	63.8
Abbott Laboratories	63.3
DENTSPLY International	63.1
Ingredion	62.9
Apache	62.8
Exxon Mobil	62.8
Bio-Rad Laboratories	62.7
Mosaic	62.6
Hewlett-Packard	62.6
ITT	62.6
Danaher	62.2
MasterCard	62
Murphy Oil	62
NXP Semiconductors	61.8
Hasbro	61.5
Air Products & Chemicals	60.2
Avnet	60.2
Freeport-McMoRan	60.2
Apple	60