However, speculation of the an eventual “tapering” in the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing plan has spooked investors.
“The seed of doubt has been sown as to what prospects the emerging markets trade has from here,” Manik Narain, a strategist at UBS, said in the article. “The big picture is: the U.S. economy is recovering and the Fed has signaled that tapering will happen.”
Moreover, emerging market stocks are suffering from a slowing economic outlook. [Options Traders Betting Against Emerging Market ETFs with Puts]
“The trend for emerging equities is very negative indeed, with a strong probability of major outflows from the asset class later this year,” John-Paul Smith, head of emerging equity strategy at Deutsche, in a separate Reuters report.
Some of the worst performing emerging market country-specific ETFs over the past month include:
- iShares MSCI Turkey Investable Market Index Fund (NYSEArca: TUR): down 15.5%
- iShares MSCI Philippines Investable Market Index Fund (NYSEArca: EPHE): down 11.6%
- iShares MSCI All Peru Capped ETF (NYSEArca: EPU): down 10.3%
- iShares MSCI Chile Capped ETF (NYSEArca: ECH): down 10.1%
- iShares MSCI South Africa Index (NYSEArca: EZA): down 8.1%
- iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF (NYSEArca: EWW): down 8.0%
- iShares MSCI Thailand Capped ETF T(NYSEArca: THD): down 7.0%
- iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (NYSEArca: EWZ): down 6.1%
- WisdomTree India Earnings Fund (NYSEArca: EPI): down 5.9%
- iShares MSCI Russia Capped Index Fund (NYSEArca: ERUS): down 5.5%
- Global X FTSE Colombia 20 ETF (NYSEArca: GXG): down 5.5%
For more information on the emerging markets, visit our emerging markets category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.