THE BIG IDEA
The day hasn’t come soon enough. Finally, we will find out which country has the greatest football team in the world: Spain or Argentina.
In honor of the event, we decided to take a look at stocks from these two countries. This is an investing newsletter, after all.
Let’s start with which country has the bigger stock market. It turns out this isn’t even close.
Total Stock Market Value (in U.S. dollars):
Spain $1.36 trillion
Argentina $103 billion
Not much happening in Argentina. The stock market there is roughly equal in value to Automatic Data Processing, Inc., or ADP.
It is more of the same if we want to find individual companies from those countries which are listed on U.S. stock exchanges.
Largest U.S.-Listed Companies in Spain or Argentina
Banco Santander (NYSE: SAN): ~$73 billion USD. Spain’s largest financial institution dominates retail and commercial banking across Europe and Latin America.
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (NYSE: BBVA): ~$41 billion USD. Don’t let the name fool you. This is another Spanish retail banking titan with significant market penetration in Mexico and South America.
Ferrovial (NASDAQ: FER): ~$35 billion USD. A Spanish multinational infrastructure company that specializes in building and managing toll roads and airports worldwide.
YPF S.A. (NYSE: YPF): ~$19.5 billion USD. Argentina’s state-backed energy company, mainly focused on oil and gas exploration.
Telefónica (NYSE: TEF): ~$15 billion USD. The historic Spanish telecom giant operates extensively throughout Europe and Latin America.
We could also just “buy the country” via country-focused ETFs. Those would be the Global X Argentina ETF (ARGT) and the iShares Spain ETF (EWP).
Once again, Spain is the place to be. Year-to-date, Spain is up by 11% while Argentina meanders around zero.
The winner is clear: Viva España!
One more thing: we might get a red card for this, but we excluded Mercado Libre (MELI) from all of this. MELI is a regional fintech/e-commerce king that was founded in Argentina and currently worth around $92 billion. It now has its official headquarters in Uruguay.
SEEN ON THE INTERNETS
On the StockTwits website, someone using the handle DarvasBoxGuru made a NSFW comment about tech stocks before posting a series of three charts for industries that look more favorable to him.
Insurance, Healthcare, and Transportation share a common characteristic: they all had a spike in trading volume to kick off a bullish run.
His chart of the iShares U.S. Healthcare Sector ETF (IYH) is copied below.
The famous Darvas box will likely be the subject of a future edition of the newsletter, as there is an interesting story about its creator.
NUMBERS ONLY
- 8.92% | The benchmark semiconductor index, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF, plunged nearly 9% last week. That makes a 15.7% loss in four weeks. |
$4.90 trillion | Apple briefly reclaimed its crown as the most valuable company in the U.S. last week. It is now just below Nvidia’s $4.91 trillion valuation. |
7 | Seven of the twenty stocks in the Dow Jones Transportation Average made a 52-week high last week. |
SWINGEX INDEX
As of market close on: 17 July 2026
Swingy says: Lots of stocks on sale now. The index isn't too excited about it yet.
Learn more about how the Swingex Index works here.
WATCHER
Stocks highlighted here each week are not recommendations to buy or sell. They are provided as ideas for swing traders to follow up on with their own research.
KTB (Kontoor Brands): The owner of the Wrangler and Helly Hansen clothing brands is our Watcher stock this week.
The stock had a good 6-week run from a low point in the middle of May up through the first days of July. It is in a consolidation period now. Whether that lasts for another couple of days or a couple weeks, nobody really knows. After enough people give up on it, KTB will likely continue higher.
This resting point comes at an interesting place. It is just below the stock’s previous all-time high set in January 2025. Stocks have a peculiar way of pausing at those levels.
Alert readers of The Prime Wave may have also noticed the shooting star back on May 7th. That preceded a quick 20% drop in price. If you know, you know.