Rather, EWT is reflective of Taiwan’s advanced economy with a 56.5% weight to the technology sector. The ETF has a beta of 0.59 and a three-year standard deviation of about 16.4%. Those numbers on the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: EEM) are 0.91 and 19.6%, according to iShares data.
“The Taipei stock exchange has performed impressively thus far this year, returning 13.3 percent to investors and outshining its competitors in Shanghai and Seoul by 559 and 652 basis points. Absolute valuations of the Taiwan exchange (as proxied by the MSCI Taiwan index) validate a modest excessportfolio exposure to the nation’s equities. At 14.5x one-year forward earnings, Taiwan’s positive-adjusted, price earnings multiple (p/e) is well below its record high (36.4x), only nine points above its all-time low, and 3.1 points short of its historical average (17.6x),” according to S&P Capital IQ.
Although Taiwanese stocks are not richly valued or deeply discounted compared to the MSCI Emerging Asia Index, investors have allocated almost $26 million to EWT this year with nearly $10 million of that sum flowing into the ETF since the start of the third quarter.
S&P Capital IQ rates EWT marketweight. EWT charges 0.61% per year and trades with a tight bid/ask spread of a penny.
iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF
Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of DEM and EEM.