Russia, which is the “R” in the BRIC acronym, is often known as having higher risk and volatility characteristics than some of the other Emerging BRIC economies. Thus, looking at trailing one year returns, Russia as measured by RSX has lost 25.30% over this period versus the MSCI Emerging Markets Index down 10.10%.
Year to date, RSX is up 10.01% versus the MSCI Emerging Markets Index up 10.11%, so roughly in line with each other. Since inception in 2007, Russia has significantly lagged the MSCI EM index, losing 25.39% versus the index up slightly (+0.59%). For an economy that tends to be heavy Energy (RSX has a 40.28% weighting to energy names for example) and Basic Materials (21.28%) weighting, the fortunes of energy related commodities may heavily weigh on the potential performance of Russian equities, and is something to monitor closely when investing in any of the Russian equity related funds.
Market Vectors Russia
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