There has been a clear dichotomy in terms of year to date returns in the broader European equity market versus Greece on a specific country level.
While GREK (Global X FTSE Greece 20, Expense Ratio 0.65%) is down more than 24% from its late February intraday trading high of
$14.59 at current levels and flirting with all-time product lows once again, a broad European equity proxy like IEV (iShares Europe 350, Expense Ratio 0.60%) is actually within shouting distance of its highest levels thus far in 2015 and has rallied back considerably from its early March lows.
It stands to mention that this market cap weighted product which tracks the S&P Europe 350 Index does not have a meaningful
weighting to Greece specifically, but rather the highest exposure is to the United Kingdom (32% of the portfolio), France (15%), Switzerland (14%), and Germany (13%).
For those investors whom are looking for exposure more specifically to the European Union members excluding of course the United Kingdom which is a part of IEV’s universe, EZU (iShares MSCI EMU, Expense Ratio 0.50%) is the obvious alternative, and the fund is now a $9.6 billion product given its strong year to date inflows (>$1.6 billion in).
GREK itself in spite of challenging performance in the short term has still managed to pull in net assets year to date (>$162 million in via creation activity) and from an sector exposure standpoint is most heavily tilted to Financial Services (23%), followed by Consumer Discretionary (15%) and Consumer Staples (13%).