With roughly one third of the global branded diabetes treatment market, Novo Nordisk is the leading provider of diabetes-care products in the world. Based in Denmark, the company manufactures and markets a variety of human and modern insulins, injectable diabetes treatments such as GLP-1 therapy, oral antidiabetic agents, and obesity treatments. Novo also has a biopharmaceutical segment (constituting roughly 10% of revenue) that specializes in protein therapies for hemophilia and other disorders.

With roughly one third of the global branded diabetes treatment market, Novo Nordisk is the leading provider of diabetes-care products in the world. Based in Denmark, the company manufactures and markets a variety of human and modern insulins, injectable diabetes treatments such as GLP-1 therapy, oral antidiabetic agents, and obesity treatments. Novo also has a biopharmaceutical segment (constituting roughly 10% of revenue) that specializes in protein therapies for hemophilia and other disorders.

With roughly one third of the global branded diabetes treatment market, Novo Nordisk is the leading provider of diabetes-care products in the world. Based in Denmark, the company manufactures and markets a variety of human and modern insulins, injectable diabetes treatments such as GLP-1 therapy, oral antidiabetic agents, and obesity treatments. Novo also has a biopharmaceutical segment (constituting roughly 10% of revenue) that specializes in protein therapies for hemophilia and other disorders.

The global economy is expected to grow at a consistent but below-trend rate for the next several quarters, according to the World Economic Outlook from the International Monetary Fund. The world economy is expected to expand 3.2% in 2024 and in 2025. Though solid, these rates are below long-term historical global growth rate of 3.8%, due to the impact of inflation and high interest rates. For industrialized economies (U.S., Europe, Japan, etc.), growth is forecast at a low 1.7% in 2024, followed by 1.8% in 2025. Among the regions, the U.S. economy is expected to grow the fastest next year, at 2.2%, while Japan's forecast is for 1.1% and Europe is estimated at 1.2%. For emerging economies (China, India, Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, etc.), growth forecasts call for 4.3% in 2024 and 4.2% in 2025. The leaders are expected to be India and China, with average growth for the two years of 6.8% and 4.7%, respectively. These nations have different drivers: population growth in India, which points toward commodity and industrial-based infrastructure products; and productivity growth in China, which suggests spending on healthcare, technology and financial services. Mexico and Canada could be wild cards in coming years, as they have been targeted for tariffs by President-elect Trump. We factor these growth forecasts into our asset-allocation models -- and based in part on slow global growth rates, we recommend that investors over-weight portfolios toward U.S.-based securities. Global stocks generally represent value, but the risks to growth are high.