Today it was announced that Brazil's economy shrank 1.8% from a year ago in the last quarter. Economists were expecting a decline of 2.8% so Brazil's GDP report wasn't as bad as expected.

In fact the small size of the contraction is remarkable considering the depth and scope of the global financial crisis and the recession in the United States and Europe. In fact in the last quarter industrial output in Brazil actually increased 1.1% while employers hired more people in February after cutting 655,000 jobs in December.

Brazil is one of the leading BRIC nations expected to become one of the largest economies of the world in the next forty years. Included in that category is Russia, India, and China.

What is interesting is that the stock markets of all four of these nations have outperformed the US over the past few months. We will be keeping a close eye on them in our stock trading newsletter.