Finding information about foreign markets used to be both hard and expensive, making it difficult to compare markets. In the early 1990s, the firms that manage mutual funds, or unit trusts, recognized these problems and started pushing their country and industry funds. Such funds can be attractive to investors without the time or inclination to do their own research, but in Asia they're usually expensive. Fund companies charge hefty upfront and annual management fees. Also, you still need an investment strategy to pick the right funds.
Stockbrokers are quite willing to supply investment strategies.
The Internet has made distributing research much cheaper for brokers, so even small customers can usually get such information. Making sense of it is another question. A lot of strategy reports are larded with insider lingo and are aimed at institutional investors. I've been reading these things for years and still have a hard time following the arguments in at least a third of what lands on my desk or screen. If you are using a discount or on-line broker you may not have access to as much of this research but there's lots of good free material on the Internet.