iShares Asia Region ETFs Weekly and YTD Returns

iShares Asia region country-based ETFs faced renewed selling pressure last week as every ETF surveyed posted a loss, paced by iShares MSCI Australia (EWA), which fell 8.8% and as much as 15% intra-week. However, the ETFs rallied strongly on Friday, following the Fed's discount rate cut.

iShares Australia (EWA) was expected to be a safer bet than other regional ETFs, given its high dependency on commodities and what seemed like a consensus outlook for sustained global growth.

That may be the case, but in the near-term Australian stocks may continue to be volatile, as concerns over the health of bond and credit markets spread globally, leading some to wonder about the state of the global economy. Also, Carl Delfeld of Chartwell ETF Advisor, cites specific domestic issues such as political campaigning, monetary tightening and lagging corporate profits.

iShares Malaysia (EWM) overtook iShares S. Korea (EWY) as the regional year-to-date return leader, +18.5% vs. +18.4%, following the latter's 5.9% drop last week, compared to only -2.4% for the former. Both funds' ytd returns are around half of their peak levels reached a month ago.

iShares Japan's (EWJ) losses were limited by an appreciating yen as carry trades continue to unwind, faring much better than domestic Japan indices, which were absolutely crushed last week.

iShares Singapore (EWS) posted the biggest rally on Friday (+6.4%) among the funds surveyed, followed by iPath ETN MSCI India (INP) +5.8% and iShares Malaysia (EWM) +5.5%.

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].

Note, 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

[mitsuo:]

Seems like you're putting all your eggs into one big basket. How does this compare to JPP (Japan PRIME ETF), JSC (Japan Small Cap ETF), GMF (SPDR Emerging Asia ETF) and GXC (SPDR China ETF)?

2007 Aug 20 09:16 PM