Six of the eight indexes on our world watch list posted gains through July 17, 2023. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 finished in the top spot with a YTD gain of 24.13%. The U.S.’s S&P 500 finished in second with a YTD gain of 18.27% while France’s CAC 40 finished in third with a YTD gain of 10.08%.
World Indexes and Recent Recessions
Let’s start with a very recent chart with the latest recession. We’ve used February 3, 2020 for our start date (this is the official NBER recession start).
Here is the same visualization, this time starting on October 9, 2007, a previous closing high for the S&P 500. This date is also approximately the mid-point of the range of market peaks, which started on June 1st for the CAC 40 and ended on January 8, 2008 for the SENSEX.
For a longer look at the relative performance, our final chart starts at the turn of the century, again indexing each at 800 for the start date.
Examples of single country ETFs:
- WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (DXJ)
- WisdomTree Europe Hedged Equity Fund (HEDJ)
- KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB)
- iShares MSCI India ETF (INDA)
- iShares MSCI Hong Kong ETF (EWH)
- SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)
For more news, information, and analysis, visit the China Insights Channel.
Note: I track Germany’s DAXK a price-only index, instead of the more familiar DAX index (which includes dividends), for consistency with the other indexes, which do not include dividends.
This article was originally written by Doug Short. From 2016-2022, it was improved upon and updated by Jill Mislinski. Starting in January 2023, AP Charts pages will be maintained by Jennifer Nash at VettaFi | Advisor Perspectives