Japan: Weekly and Year-to-date ETF and CEF Performance

Japanese ETFs traded to the downside last week, giving back some of their gains from the week prior. There was rather muted action, especially later in the week, as the end of the quarter was approaching and stocks went ex-dividend.

The Nikkei 225 closed last Friday at 17,287.65, down 1.1% for the week. As I've mentioned each week for the past month, it has not even come close to recovering its 52-week and multi-year high of 18,300.39 (intra-day; it closed at 18,215.35) set on Feb. 26. (See chart below)

The 10 Japanese ETFs (including 2 CEFs) trading in the U.S. lost a combined average 2.1% last week. They are still up for the year, by a combined average 2.1%.

Here's their combined average return over the past several weeks:

03/16 - 03/23: +3.1%
03/09 - 03/16: -1.9%
03/02 - 03/09: +2.0%
02/23 - 03/02: -4.8%
02/16 - 02/23: +0.9%
02/09 - 02/16: +3.6%

See the chart below for more information.

Disclosure: The author does not own shares of any funds mentioned in this article.

Click to enlarge chart

Every fund except SPDR Russell/Nomura SmallCap Japan (JSC) posted a negative return last week. The two small-cap ETFs fared the best and are also at the top-end of year-to-date returns among the 10 Japanese funds.

The two obvious laggards are the closed-end funds: Japan Equity Fund, Inc. (JEQ) and Japan Smaller Capitalization Fund, Inc. (JOF). The latter is trading at an 8% premium to its NAV, as of last Friday, according to Morningstar.com. JEQ however, is trading at 4.3% discount.

iShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ), the most actively traded country-based ETF, lost 2.2% last week but is still up 2.5% on the year.

For your reference, here's a list of the 10 funds:

iShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ)
iShares S&P/TOPIX 150 (ITF)
Japan Equity Fund, Inc. (JEQ)
Japan Smaller Capitalization Fund, Inc. (JOF)
SPDR Russell/Nomura Prime Japan (JPP)
SPDR Russell/Nomura SmallCap Japan (JSC)
Vanguard Pacific Stock (VPL)
WisdomTree JP High-Yielding Equity (DNL)
WisdomTree JP SmallCap Dividend (DFJ)
WisdomTree JP Total Dividend (DXJ)