Countries In Review: August 2019

June was overwhelmingly positive for country ETFs, with just three funds landing in negative territory. The worst performer was the Global X MSCI Pakistan ETF (PAK), which was down a fairly steep 14.06%. However, the iShares MSCI UAE ETF (UAE) was the second worst performer, with a decline of just 0.61%, followed by the iShares MSCI India ETF (INDA), which was down 0.16%. The fund that saw the most upside during the month was the Global X MSCI Argentina ETF (ARGT), which was up 15.51%, while the iShares MSCI Singapore ETF (EWS) was up 10.03% and the iShares MSCI Italy ETF (EWI) was up 9.89%. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) led the way with flows, pulling in an impressive $3 billion; the iShares MSCI Spain ETF (EWP) saw less than one-tenth of those flows, but still claimed the No. 2 spot, with a gain of $282.5 million. The iShares MSCI France ETF (EWQ) was in the No. 3 spot, pulling in $158.6 million. The funds with the most outflows included the iShares MSCI Japan ETF (EWJ), which lost $595.4 million; the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ), which had outflows of $358 million; and the iShares MSCI Germany ETF (EWG), which lost $319.1 million.

Index Data Source: MSCI.
Sources: Bloomberg and FactSet.
Data from 05/31/2019 to 06/30/2019.

Note: This list intends to capture the returns of most liquid ETFs tracking individual countries around the world. It does not capture every country in the MSCI All Country World Index. Also, as indicated by the design above, frontier market countries are not included in the MSCI All Country World Index.