There have been plenty of noteworthy elections around the world this year, including mid-terms here in the U.S. and Brazil’s closest presidential election in nearly three decades.
Greece is holding presidential elections on Dec. 17, two months earlier than previously scheduled. Here is the problem: As of Monday, this is an election with no candidates and that is proving particularly problematic for the Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF (NYSEArca: GREK).
Shares of GREK, the lone Greece ETF, are off nearly 11% Tuesday “after Greece’s government decided to bring forward a parliamentary vote for president,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
Just two years after Greece brought the Eurozone to the brink of a full-fledged crisis and stoked speculation that the common currency scheme was close to meeting its demise, the country is again roiling global markets as yields on Greek 10-year government bonds soar. Yields on 10-year Greek bonds hover around 8.07%, according to Investing.com.
That is a long way from the 36.5% seen in early 2012, but also more than 200 basis points above the yield on the same bonds in June 2014. In April, Greek tapped global debt markets for the first time since 2009, selling five-year bonds at a yield of 4.95%, but those yields have since surged.
With Greek stocks incurring a double-digit loss today, banks proved especially vulnerable. That is bad news for GREK, an ETF that allocates 37% of its weight to the financial services sector, more than two and a half times the weight the ETF devotes to consumer discretionary, its second-largest sector weight. [Politics Pressure Greece ETF]
GREK has been confounded by a double-whammy of sorts this year. Broadly speaking, investors have not favored single-country Europe ETFs this year, nor have they been enthused by emerging markets ETFs. Last year, some major index providers demoted Greece to emerging markets status. The country accounts for a scant percentage of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. [Greece Moves to Emerging Markets Status]
Year-to-date, GREK is off 31.1%. That compares with an average loss of 5% for fellow PIIGS ETFs the iShares MSCI Spain Capped ETF (NYSEArca: EWP) and the iShares MSCI Italy Capped ETF(NYSEArca: EWI).
Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF
ETF Trends editorial team contributed to this post.