After struggling through the first quarter and lagging a rebound in emerging markets exchange traded funds that started in February, ETFs holding Chinese stocks are rewarding investors.
Investors are saying thank you by allocating fresh capital to China funds, such as the iShares China Large-Cap ETF (NYSEArca: FXI).
FXI, the largest and most heavily traded China ETF, “has attracted a net $518 million in August, putting it on track for the biggest monthly inflow since $1.34 billion was added in December 2012,” reports Belinda Cao for Bloomberg.
After the aforementioned first-quarter struggles, FXI is up 10.7% in the past 90 days, but year-to-date, the ETF is just the third-best of the four major single-country BRIC ETFs. Only the Market Vectors Russia ETF (NYSEArca: RSX) has been worse.
FXI, which had $5.8 billion in assets under management as of Aug. 28, has been sparked by Tencent Holdings (OTCBB: TCEHY), which is up nearly 12% over the past three months, and China Mobile (NYSE: CHL). Shares of the telecom giant have surged 26.8% in the past 90 days. Those stocks combine for 19.6% of FXI’s weight. [China ETFs Continue to Impress]
Often criticized for its large weight to the financial services sector, which currently rests at 53.6%, that hefty exposure has worked in FXI’s favor this year as Chinese banks have rallied. Dividend growth by banks there has made China the largest dividend payer in the developing world. [China’s Dividend Growth Story]