U.S. equities experienced a slight pullback on concerns that the Fed will cut back quantitative easing, but overseas markets, particularly emerging market exchange traded funds, witnessed heavy selling pressure as investors fled risky assets.
The iShares MSCI Turkey Investable Market Index Fund (NYSEArca: TUR) was the worst performing emerging market single country ETF over the past month, declining 19.9%. [Single-Country ETFs for Emerging Markets Slammed by Fed Talk]
In Istanbul, protestors are clashing with riot police, stoking volatility in the Turkish markets. [Turkey ETF Down Over 20% in a Month on Protest Fears]
“Since May 31, political risks that weren’t priced in before started being realized,” Cuneyt Paksoy, an investment committee member at Rhea Asset Management, said in a Bloomberg article. “We’re seeing a market reaction against uncalculated risks. We are practically in bear market territory anyway.”
The Market Vectors India Small-Cap ETF (NYSEArca: SCIF) has declined 18.2% over the past month.
India is suffering for a record high current-account deficit, which has left the economy expanding at its slowest pace in a decade and provides little room for the Reserve Bank of India to cut interest rates.
“Currency stability has become a new worry,” Rajeev Malik, an economist at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, said in a Bloomberg report. “A rate cut is unlikely to do much in reviving growth, but it will renew the pressure on the rupee to weaken further.”
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