iShares Asia Region ETFs Weekly and YTD Returns

The iShares Asia region country-based ETFs posted another week of broad gains, with only Japan and the comparative benchmark S&P 500 not up double-digits for the year.

iShares MSCI Malaysia (EWM), has been overtaken as the year-to-date return leader by iShares S. Korea (EWY), which led all advancers again, gaining 5.2% to 38.9% year-to-date. Malaysia rose 1.0%, taking its ytd return to 33.4%.

iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 (FXI), rose 3.0% (second-best last week), increasing its ytd return to 26.5%.

Singapore (EWS) gained 2.6%, pushing its ytd return to 27.1%.

iShares Australia (EWA) added 1.6% to hold its position as the third best performer ytd among the funds surveyed, at +27.4%.

iShares Japan (EWJ) continues to widely underperform rival regional funds and broader benchmarks, as it rose 1.0% (+4.0% ytd).

See the chart below for last week's results. There are two sets of returns for each ETF: the past week [light blue] and year-to-date [purple].

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

Click to enlarge chart

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

Here is a list of the relevant ETFs and their tickers.

iShares Australia (EWA)
iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 (FXI)
iShares Hong Kong (EWH)
iPath ETN MSCI India (INP)
iShares Japan (EWJ)
iShares Malaysia (EWM)
iShares Singapore (EWS)
iShares S. Korea (EWY)
iShares Taiwan (EWT)
iShares EAFE (EFA)
iShares Pacific ex-Japan (EPP)
iShares S&P 500 (IVV)

Comments

[Mtn153:]

While those Pacific Rim ETF's are doing well, I'm really suprised that you have overlooked the ETF's of Latin America as they are out performing the funds you mentioned be it one year or going all the way back to the bottom of 2002 (450%). If you follow the movement of manufacturing (thanks to NAFTA) by American companies overseas, you will note that by far, more are moving their operations to Latin America rather than the Pacific Rim. Johnson and Johnson is a good example. Their are also many reasons to believe that they will do far better in the coming years. They are completely energy independent, they have a growing well educated middle class, their governments are following a very friendly approach to entice more manufacturing relocation to their contries, they are mostly Catholic and have few Muslims and therefore will have little involvement in the coming Christian/Muslim wars. In my opinion, these and many other reasons should encourage American investors to look South rather than West.

2007 Jul 16 05:48 PM