Asia Region ETFs Struggled Last Week, But Poised to Rally

iShares Asia region country-based ETFs mostly traded lower across the board again for a third-week. iPath ETN MSCI India (INP) and iShares MSCI Japan (EWJ) were the only advancers. However, losses were partially recouped in a bullish half-day session on Friday, and the rally is likely to extend into Monday following broad gains in the region ahead of the New York market open.

iPath ETN India extended its year-to-date performance lead among the funds surveyed, gaining 1.8% last week and now up more than 68% year-to-date.

iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 (FXI) fell 3.4%, trading lower for a fourth-straight week, but is still up nearly 55% ytd.

iShares Japan rose 1.3% last week. However, it is still down 4.0% on the year. Recent yen strength has been a positive for EWJ, while ordinary shares suffered prolonged selling pressure until mid-week.

iShares South Korea (EWY) was the worst performer, losing 8.2% and lowering its ytd return to just over 26%.

iShares Australia (EWA), Hong Kong (EWH) and Taiwan (EWT) all lost more than 3% last week.

Despite the string of weekly declines, a majority of the funds surveyed remain up double-digits for the year. Japan in negative territory and Taiwan up around 7%, are the only regional funds not up double-digits.

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.

In Monday (11/26) trading, every regional benchmark except the Shanghai Composite closed higher. The Seoul Composite, last week's laggard, led all advancers, +4.7%, followed by the Hang Seng +4.1% (reportedly on news of renewed speculation over mainland investors being allowed to invest in HK), Singapore's Strait's Times +2.8%, Australia's All Ordinaries +2.2% (first positive close since incoming PM) and Taiwan's Weighted index +2.2%. India's BSE 30 gained 2.1% and the Nikkei 225 rose 1.7%. Meanwhile, the Shanghai Composite lost 1.5% to close below 5,000 again for the second time in three sessions, after last trading sub-5k three months ago.

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

[Greg Pinelli:]

The Asia markets are still very much copycat entities..I wouldn't be too quick to assume any of them will rally as long as sporadic bad and worse news is coming out of US markets concerning debt and liquidity problems.

2007 Nov 26 08:31 PM