After starting the year in a very sharp decline, Russian stocks have rocketed ahead, far outpacing US equities. The Market Vectors Russia ETF (RSX) is up 45% year-to-date compared to a nearly flat performance for the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY).
China’s Shanghai market isn’t the only one benefiting from its government’s aggressive actions to restart the economy, Taiwan is gaining ground as well. Since the March 9 bottom, the iShares MSCI Taiwan Index ETF (EWT) is up 51% compared to a gain of 33% for the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) over the same time period.
As the U.S. equity markets turn in a second month of gains, the pharmaceuticals sector has been left behind. After bottoming in early March, the market has turned in consecutive weeks of postive results with the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) up 29% from the low.
The recent rally in equities has seen small cap ETFs outpace their larger cousins. Since the equity markets bottomed on March 9, the iShares S&P SmallCap 600 (IJR) is up 37% compared to a 26% gain for the iShares S&P 500 (IVV) over the same period.
Chinese stocks started 2009 in a nosedive that continued through February. Since then, China has been on a tear. The $6 billion China ETF iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI)was down nearly 27% through March 2.
After starting the year in line with the overall market, technology stocks began pulling ahead in February and are now in positive territory for the year. The technology heavy PowerShares QQQ (QQQQ) is up over 4% year to date through April 3 while the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) is down nearly 9% over the same time period.
Despite a scare generated by the rollout of the Obama healthcare plan, the medical device sector continues to outperform the broader market. Since the beginning of the year, The Dow Jones U.S. Medical Devices Index Fund (IHI) is down only 5% comparing favorably to the S&P 500 (SPY) which was down 12% year-to-date as of Friday.
The dollar suffered one its worst weeks in decades as the Fed announced plans to print money at a faster rate. Last Wednesday, the Fed announced a plan to pump an additional $1.15 trillion into the economy through the purchase of long-term Treasury bonds and other actions.
After closing at a new multi-year low on Monday, stocks rallied through the rest of the week on the back of reassuring remarks from bankers and administration officials. The broad market ETF SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) closed the week at $76.09, up 12% from Monday’s low of $68.11.
After a long decline that ended in February, oil prices are starting to climb back up despite the fact that the dollar is at its strongest point in 2 years. The United States Oil Fund (USO), a $3 billion ETF that tracks spot oil prices, hit a low of $22.74 on February 18 before bouncing back to close at $27.99 on March 6.