2009 Stock Market Returns – Emerging Markets in Triple Digits

2009 Stock Market Returns around the world have been anything but steady following the financial collapse of 2008 and a follow-through into 2009 that resulted in complete capitulation the likes of which hasn’t been seen in decades.  Following the March low, stocks have rocketed back, many of them leveraged off of a US rally with triple digit returns in just 6 months.  Earlier in the year, I had updated on 2009 stock market returns by country YTD June showing the US at a mere 3% return vs. several emerging market returns exceeding 50%.  Well, rather than doing another YTD with a rather random 9.6 month window to look at, I thought it would be instructive to take a look at 6 month returns of several major bourses – both developed and emerging markets.  The 6 month window not only roughly matches the same window as my last update, but also happens to start shortly after the global market resurgence began – so we can all feel bad (myself included) about the triple digit gains we could have been enjoying if we had participated in some of these emerging market ETFs in 2009.  You’ll see that even some of the developed market indices had great returns as well.  Rather than reporting index returns per se, I used the best proxy ETF I could find for various markets since it’s handy to have this massive ETF list at your disposal for future reference – bookmark this page!

(UPDATE: See Full-Year 2009 Market Returns)

2009 Stock Market Returns: By Highest Return prior 6 Month Period

% Return  Ticker   Country ETF

159.60%    TKF  Turkish Investment Fund
144.00%    IDX Market Vectors Indonesia Index ETF
122.50%    IF     Indonesia Fund
113.40%    IRL   New Ireland Fund
106.50%    INP  Ipath Msci India Index Etn
104.10%    EPI   WisdomTree India
93.30%    SGF    Singapore Fund
92.50%    HAO  Claymore AlphaShares China Small Cap Index
92.30%    IFN    India Fund
86.80%    EWO  Ishares Msci Austria Index Fund
85.20%    MXF   Mexico Fund
85.00%    RSX    Market Vectors Russia ETF Trust
84.30%    EWS  Ishares Msci Singapore Index Fund
75.10%    SNF    Spain Fund
74.70%    EWY Ishares Msci-south Korea Index Fund
74.40%    ISL     First Israel Fund
72.60%    GXG  Global X/InterBolsa FTSE Colombia 20 ETF
71.70%    TTF    Thai Fund
71.30%    EWZ   Ishares Msci Brazil Index Fund
70.20%    EWI   Ishares Msci Italy Index Fund
69.40%    EWD  Ishares Msci Sweden Index Fund
69.00%    KEF    Korea Equity Fund
64.10%    EWN  Ishares Msci Netherlands Index Fund
58.60%    EWT  iShares MSCI Taiwan Index
58.50%    EWC  Ishares Msci Canada Index Fund
58.20%    EZA    Ishares Msci South Africa Index Fund
56.30%    MAY  Malaysia Fund
55.20%    EWU  Ishares Msci United Kingdom Index Fund
52.80%    EWQ  Ishares Msci France Index Fund
50.00%    EWG  Ishares Msci Germany Index Fund
47.80%    EWL  Ishares Msci Switzerland Index Fund
47.00%    CH    Chile Fund
44.50%    JEQ  Japan Equity Fund
39.11%  SPY   SPDR S&P 500 (ETF)

Analysis: Just as we saw during the 2008 stock market returns list where the US lost the least, during the rebound, the US has gained the least.  While investors thought they were “daring” in tipping their toe back in to US stocks during March/April, the real volatility (and in this case, the real gains) have come from international stocks – primarily emerging markets.  There were certainly a few surprises in there for me, most notably, that the proverbial BRIC countries didn’t have a terribly strong showing at the top of the list.  I was also surprised to see how much stronger some of the old Europe countries performed compared to the US.  Where from here?  Who knows, but I don’t think any equities portfolio is complete these days without at least some exposure to some of the developed and developing markets here outside the US.

(UPDATE: See Full-Year 2009 Market Returns)

Tagged as: 2009 stock market returns, Emerging Market ETFs