Russia & Japan Leading the Way in 2010

19. January. 2010
Moby Waller

I took a look at about 15 of the major single-country ETFs in terms of 2010 performance. There were 2 clear names topping the list and 2 lagging the pack: Russia (RSX) and Japan (EWJ) were the outperformers, both up over 7% YTD. China (FXI) and Brazil (EWZ) are the laggards thus far, each down over 1% in 2010.

Hard to say what the causation/correlation is between these countries at this point, because Russia and Brazil are often considered "commodity play" countries. Currency fluctuations may be playing some part. But it's something to keep an eye on, especially Japan which has been a laggard for many years now. There may be some good relative gains to be made in that slumbering economic power contained in a tiny set of islands.