Average Annual Returns as of 9/30/2013
The “Bottom 5”
WisdomTree’s five worst-performing ETFs on a year-to-date basis may represent some pockets of underlying relative value—the types of areas where a contrarian investor may want to focus.
• GNAT: This fund focuses on equities within natural resource sectors, and it is the second worst-performing of all WisdomTree’s equity Funds year-to-date. However, if we compare the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio to the S&P 500 Index, a commonly used benchmark for the performance of U.S. equities, it is nearly 30% lower. Generally speaking, natural resources are necessary inputs to help fuel overall global growth, so this recent negative performance could be an opportunity.
• Emerging Markets: ELD, ICN and EPI all fit a common theme of different ways in which to generate exposure to emerging markets, and in the case of ICN and EPI, to India. Each has a negative return year-to-date. In the case of India, there has been great volatility. A change of leadership at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the beginning of September has been viewed positively, but India’s difficulties are far from solved. ELD, to us, could be the more interesting opportunity, in that its performance year-to-date is down more than other broad-based WisdomTree equity Funds focused on the emerging markets. While certainly not without risk,locally denominated debt in emerging markets has been hard hit during 2013 thus far—and may represent a possible valuation opportunity.
• AUNZ: The Australian and New Zealand economies are strongly connected to commodities—a factor that could have influenced some of the negative performance in 2013 year-to-date. However, the more important factor to note is that the Australian dollar has lost 10.4% against the U.S. dollar over this period, and the Fund’s negative performance can largely be explained by this currency move.