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A second grader's plushie is going to the Moon! ORLANDO, FL / ACCESS Newswire / March 27, 2026 / Freelancer (ASX:FLN)(OTCQX:FLNCF), the world's largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace, today congratulates Lucas Ye of Mountain View, California, whose design "Rise" has been chosen by the crew of NASA's Artemis II mission as their Zero Gravity Indicator.
2025 was a big year for ex-U.S. equities, as a declining dollar, tariff uncertainty, and domestic concentration risk drove investors abroad. Broad ex-U.S. equities performed well and rewarded those investors, but it was some notable subregions that really delivered.
FLN which follows an enhanced stock selection methodology while picking Latam stocks has outperformed EMs and global markets quite handsomely this year. We measure FLN against the standard ILF ETF, which is the largest Latam focussed ETF. 78% of FLN's holdings come from regions that are staring at a dispiriting growth outlook.
China and Hong Kong markets had a humbling 2023 with equities down more than 10%. Beijing has also begun stepping up tourism and travel promotions, granting visa-free entry to 11 countries, with Singapore and Thailand the latest to be included.
Argentina's official election isn't until October. However, Libertarian economist Javier Milei's big upset in the August primary suggests the South American country could soon have a new president.
The MSCI Latin America Index has performed better than the MSCI Emerging Market Index cumulatively over the past 5 and 7 years as well as over longer time periods, buoyed by its natural resource companies. The region is well placed to take advantage of the opportunities created by the renewable energy revolution with 54% of global lithium reserves concentrated there.
Water scarcity in Latin America is likely to intensify supply chain and operational disruptions, regulatory risks, and economic losses for businesses during the next five years. In Brazil, hydropower accounts for 65% of the electricity matrix.
Economies of Latin America and Caribbean have continued their strong post-pandemic rebound, but the winds are shifting as global financial conditions are tightening and commodity prices are reversing their upward trend, while inflationary pressures persist. The reopening of contact-intensive sectors, especially hospitality and travel, the unwinding of pandemic pent-up demand, and still favorable external financial conditions supported a solid expansion in the first half of the year, allowing services to catch up with manufacturing, and employment to reach pre-pandemic levels.