What a difference a few years makes in terms of the once much maligned PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain)), which, if we look at related ETFs, they are among the top performers year to date in all of
the European equity ETF space.
The relevant ETFs here are PGAL (Global X FTSE Portugal 20, Expense Ratio 0.61%), EWI (iShares MSCI Italy, Expense Ratio 0.51%), EIRL (iShares MSCI Capped Investable Market, Expense Ratio 0.52%), GREK (Global X FTSE Greece 20, Expense Ratio 0.69%), and EWP (iShares MSCI Spain, Expense Ratio 0.52%).
PGAL remains somewhat small, with about $20.8 million in assets under management, while EIRL has $179 million, EWI an impressive $1.29 billion, GREK $255 million, and EWP about $1.66 billion. EWP and EWI are seasoned veterans of the ETF space, with both of these funds having debuted way back in 1996.
EIRL (2010 inception), GREK (2011 inception), and PGAL (2013 inception) are obviously quite newer and have received a decent level of institutional and retail interest and activity since their respective debuts.
In U.S. markets, we have seen a rather steep and swift intraday move today on this first Friday in April, primarily driven by aggressive sellers in higher beta segments of the market (once again), like Social Media (SOCL) and Small-Caps (IWM) for example.
This said, we are not seeing the same type of weakness in these PIIGS markets today, for example EWI (Italy) has traded at a recent multi-month high again today and EWP (Spain) is flirting with similar levels. There is some softness today in PGAL, GREK, and EIRL but it is clear that for the past several quarters, institutional portfolio managers have been warming up to long exposure in the PIIGs, and we note trailing one year inflows that look like the following: PGAL (+$17 mln), EWI (+$432 mln), EIRL (+$94 million), GREK (+$196 million), and EWP (+$1.18 billion).
iShares MSCI Spain Capped ETF
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