iShares Asia Region ETFs Weekly and YTD Returns

What a difference a week makes. Last week's coverage of the iShares Asia region ETFs showed most continued to outperform the S&P 500. This week's coverage however, shows weakness across the region and negative year-to-date returns for many.

Following the global sell-off that began in China last Tuesday, Asian stocks have gone from being loved and easily outperforming the S&P 500, to being hated and now mostly underperforming, on both a weekly and year-to-date basis.

See last week's and the year-to-date performance below and then compare it to the prior week's chart.

As of last Friday, the only iShares Asia funds that remain positive on the year are: Japan, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia.

On a weekly basis, iShares MSCI Japan (EWJ) fared best, losing 3.92%, helped somewhat by the rise in the yen, while the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 dropped nearly 10%, and iShares Malaysia (EWM) tanked on heavy profit-taking.

Click to enlarge chart

Click to enlarge chart

In the chart, the bars for the iShares S&P 500 index (IVV) are colored differently for comparative purposes.

The Asian iShares discussed in this post are likely going to be sold heavily when trading starts in New York today. At the time of publishing, the benchmarks for each country were trading lower. See the percentage declines next to the list of tickers below.

Here is a list of the relevant ETFs and their tickers, as well today's country-based benchmark return at the time of publishing.

iShares Australia (EWA) -2.3%
iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 (FXI) -2.7% (Shanghai Composite)
iShares Hong Kong (EWH) -3.0%
iShares Japan (EWJ) -3.3% (Nikkei 225)
iShares Malaysia (EWM) -6.3%
iShares Singapore (EWS) -4.7%
iShares S.Korea (EWY) -2.7%
iShares Taiwan (EWT) -3.7%
iShares EAFE (EFA)
iShares Pacific ex-Japan (EPP)
iShares S&P 500 (IVV)

Disclosure: The author owns iShares Japan call options.