Today we quickly revisit a several country focused ETFs that have exposure to the Middle East via direct or indirect geography, which we covered in several segments this past summer.
EGPT (Market Vectors Egypt, Expense Ratio 0.98%) while technically in Africa, is undoubtedly negatively affected by continued distress in the region that may occur through the remainder of the year causing any economic instability, and the ETF is now showing it with a $68 handle and flirting with its 200 day MA.
We put out a cautious piece on EGPT here when it was in the $76 range in early September. Turkey? In the headlines just a bit lately given the ISIS advance on their doorstep in Kobane, and how has the ETF that tracks its equity market fared?
TUR (iShares MSCI Turkey Investable Market, Expense Ratio 0.61%) is actually bouncing notably today (+>3%) but it has not really seen any notable asset flows lately (losing >$62 million YTD), after trading at its lowest
levels last week since the early spring of this year.
Trading has been somewhat wild today with a large intraday range in GULF (WisdomTree Middle East Dividend, Expense Ratio 0.88%) which is the second largest fund in terms of AUM in the “Middle East” category with about $57.6 million, and we also watch an array of others here EIS (iShares MSCI Israel, Expense Ratio 0.62%), UAE (iShares MSCI UAE Capped, Expense Ratio 0.61%), GAF (SPDR S&P Middle East & Africa, Expense Ratio 0.59%), ISRA (Market Vectors Israel, Expense Ratio 0.59%), QAT (iShares MSCI Qatar Capped, Expense Ratio 0.61%), and MES (Market Vectors Gulf States, Expense Ratio 0.98%).