The complete list of ADRs from Argentina that are traded in the U.S. are listed below:

Emerging markets are the best performing markets this year. In these markets, the main market indexes of countries like Brazil have skyrocketed year-to-date (YTD) relative to other countries. For example, the MSCI Brazil Index ETF (EWZ) is up an incredible 99.42% as of September 30, 2009. Some of the Latin American ADRs have also had great runs.

The list below shows the Latin American ADRs which are up 100% or more as of Oct 6, 2009:

Foreign utility stocks have performed well off the lows seen in March this year, similar to the financial sector. While the financial sector gets most of the media attention due to the stress-tests in the US, as well as bailouts and other events, I wanted to find out how the foreign utility sector was performing since the March lows. The results of my research are displayed below in table form.

Performance of foreign utilities since March lows:

Latin American markest were in line with bourses around the world on Friday, showing strong gains with Merval (+5.9%), Bovespa (+7.17%), the Mexican IPC (+3.89%) and Chile's IPSA (+2.53%). On top of the rally among Latin American ADRs were the Argentine energy companies MetroGAS (MGS) (+37,91%), Edenor (EDN) (+21.0%) and Petrobras Energia (PZE) (+16.09%). Two other Argentine companies came in next among the top gainers, with Telecom Argentina (TEO) (+14.47%) and Banco Macro (BMA) (+12.38%). They were followed by Mexican radio broadcasting company Grupo Radio Centro (RC) (+11.56%) and Brazilian wireless service provider TIM Participacoes (TSU) (+10.49%).

Overall the market for Latin American ADRs showed a very strong gain, with only 6 ending the day lower, against 75 ADRs showing a gain. 37 Latin American ADRs were unchanged due to no trading activity.

During bear markets utility stocks used to provide shelter for investors since they were considered to be stable, slow-growth and conservative investments. However that has changed in the past few years. These days they do not seem to offer the much-desired stability and protection that they were once known for. This is evident in the current market as well.

Year-to-date the S&P 500 is down 38.96% and the Utilities sub-sector within the index is down 29.82%. Though this is less than the S&P 500, the sector is still down around 30% for the year - which is very high for this sector. On the other hand, the best performing sector, consumer-staples, is down only 17.02%. On the global level, the SPDR SP International Utilities Sector ETF (IPU), started in July of this year, has a negative return of 29.09% year-to-date.

This article will review the eight Latin American utility stocks that trade in the New York Stock Exchange. Brazil dominates this list with four stocks, while Chile and Argentina each have two stocks.

People invest in utility stocks for their dividend yields. Unlike other sectors, utility stocks tend to provide some stability to a well-diversified portfolio. Some would argue that this assumption might not be true these days due to many risky strategies followed by utilities. There are many risks to consider when investing in emerging market utilities such as political risk, currency risk, and interest rate risk. Therefore, caution is warranted before picking up some of the stocks mentioned in this piece. For example, countries like Argentina have had their share of economic upheavals.