A country that is not represented well in terms of fund offerings (with only one product currently listed in the U.S.), is Peru.
EPU (iShares MSCI All Peru Capped Index, Expense Ratio 0.62%) debuted in June of 2009 and remains the only investment option here, and has about $176 million in assets under management at the moment. While Peru only makes up about 2.89% of a broad Latin America index proxy, ILF (iShares Latin America 40, Expense Ratio 0.49%), it is actually down less than the aforementioned fund/index in the trailing one year period.
Performance has been disappointing for all of Latin America year to date including Peru, but on the bright side the country’s stock market is down substantially less than neighboring Brazil (reference EWZ (iShares MSCI Brazil, Expense Ratio 0.62%) in the trailing one year period and unlike Brazil, is still showing positive overall performance since its inception when compared to EWZ in a common timeframe.
Currently there are twenty nine Peruvian based equities within EPU, with the top two names, Credicorp Ltd. (>22.2%), and Southern Copper Corp. (>18.3%) clearly making up a substantial part of the overall portfolio. Also, more than 72% of the weightings in the portfolio are across the top ten names in the index, so from a cap-weighted standpoint the Peruvian stock market could be considered a bit top heavy by nature.
Two sectors dominate the weightings of the index, with Basic Materials stocks making up >49.3% of the portfolio and followed by Financial Services (>28.8%). Large caps are the most heavily represented (>43.1%), followed by a >11.4% allocation to Small-Caps and a >10.7% exposure to Mid-Cap stocks.