An emerging markets chill rattled U.S. stocks as January, a month historically kind to the bulls, turned out to be the worst of any month for U.S. stocks since May 2012. It was also the worst January performance in 24 years.
Blame emerging markets. Heading into the start of Friday’s trading session all of the 10 worst non-leveraged ETFs to start the year were emerging markets ETFs. As we’ve recently noted, that list of developing world offenders knows no regional, but Latin America has dubiously heavy presence on the list. [Brazil ETFs Hunt for Bottoms]
Given the weakness permeating the emerging markets complex this week, it comes as no surprise that the most searched ticker on ETF Trends this week was the iShares MSCI Turkey ETF (NYSEArca: TUR). On Tuesday, the Turkish central bank raised its overnight lending rate to 12% from 7.75% and more than doubled the overnight borrowing rate to 8% to 3.5% in one of the boldest moves by any central bank in recent memory to defend a flailing currency. [Hope for the Turkey ETF]
On Friday, TUR closed just 89 cents above its 52-week low. Global ETFs joining TUR on our 10 most searched list this week include the iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF (NYSEArca: FM), the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: EEM) and the Market Vectors Indonesia Index ETF (NYSEArca: IDX).