When looking through year-to-date returns on exchange traded funds and notes of various asset classes, we are hard pressed to find any positive returns among equity based strategies, as most of the “gainers” this year are either gold/precious metals-related funds, inverse (short) equity funds, or of the fixed-income variety.
However, one country that has exhibited impressive relative strength despite the drubbing that the overall global equity markets have taken recently is Indonesia.
Two plays in the ETF space that offer exposure to the Indonesian equity markets are Market Vectors Indonesia (NYSEArca: IDX) and iShares MSCI Indonesia (NYSEArca: EIDO).
Year to date, EIDO has returned 7.9% while IDX is up 5.7% versus the MSCI All Country Asia ex-Japan Index (AAXJ), which is down 17.2% year to date. [Indonesia ETFs Continue Climb]
This type of outperformance in a poor performing equity market that Indonesia has displayed (from a relative strength standpoint) likely bodes well in the event of any recovery that global equities may experience between now and year’s end.