Individual Country ETF First Quarter Performances
By Sun
The first quarter of 2009 is in the books. Thanks to the strong rally in the second half of March, the U.S. stock market ended the month on the positive note, even though it wasn’t enough the pull the market out of the red for the quarter. For the quarter, the S&P 500 Index lost 11.7% after reaching fresh 12-year low on March 9. If the quarter were end on March 9, then the loss would have more than doubled at 25.1%
Looking around the world, U.S. apparently isn’t the best place for investors (I still remember the” no safer investment than U.S.” comment made by White House Press Secretary early last month). In fact, based on returns of iShare individual country ETFs calculated by Morningstar, a few countries even showed positive numbers for the first three months of 2009, led by iShares MSCI Chile Investable Market Index(ECH)’s 15.76% gain as shown in the following table.
| Name | Symbol | 3-month return(%) | 1-year return(%) |
| iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index | FXI | -1.93 | -35.38 |
| iShares MSCI Australia Index | EWA | -4.43 | -44.53 |
| iShares MSCI Austria Investable Mkt Idx | EWO | -5.61 | -61.87 |
| iShares MSCI Belgium Investable Mkt Idx | EWK | -8.13 | -63.68 |
| iShares MSCI Brazil Index | EWZ | 7.72 | -48.52 |
| iShares MSCI Canada Index | EWC | -5.57 | -44.46 |
| iShares MSCI Chile Investable Mkt Idx | ECH | 15.76 | -33.52 |
| iShares MSCI France Index | EWQ | -17.82 | -47.78 |
| iShares MSCI Germany Index | EWG | -22.11 | -50.45 |
| iShares MSCI Hong Kong Index | EWH | -1.93 | -40.43 |
| iShares MSCI Israel Cap Invest Mkt Index | EIS | 8.72 | -30.80 |
| iShares MSCI Italy Index | EWI | -22.88 | -54.29 |
| iShares MSCI Japan Index | EWJ | -17.54 | -35.32 |
| iShares MSCI Malaysia Index | EWM | -4.12 | -38.39 |
| iShares MSCI Mexico Investable Mkt Idx | EWW | -15.34 | -52.71 |
| iShares MSCI Netherlands Investable Mkt Idx | EWN | -16.49 | -53.67 |
| iShares MSCI Singapore Index | EWS | -10.64 | -48.08 |
| iShares MSCI South Africa Index | EZA | -3.45 | -31.02 |
| iShares MSCI South Korea Index | EWY | 1.75 | -48.02 |
| iShares MSCI Spain Index | EWP | -20.62 | -48.01 |
| iShares MSCI Sweden Index | EWD | -10.22 | -51.21 |
| iShares MSCI Switzerland Index | EWL | -17.85 | -39.96 |
| iShares MSCI Taiwan Index | EWT | 6.32 | -45.00 |
| iShares MSCI Thailand Invest Mkt Index | THD | -6.47 | -54.02 |
| iShares MSCI Turkey Invest Mkt Index | TUR | -10.99 | -47.18 |
| iShares MSCI United Kingdom Index | EWU | -14.45 | -48.86 |
However, beware that returns of these ETFs do not represent the actual performances of those country’s stock markets. For example, China’s Shanghai Stock Market Composite Index surged more than 30% in the first quarter, one of the best performing markets so far this year. Yet, iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI) is still down 1.93%, as well as other China ETFs, such as PGJ and FCHI.
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