The Chartwell ETF Advisor has long recommended an Asian tilt in its global exchange-traded fund portfolios. Last year, the big ETF winners were Indonesia (IF) and China (FXI) which were both up over 80%. This year the market has been more difficult but while the S&P 500 index is up 1.6%, the Singapore market is up 8.83%, Thailand is up 12.61% and Japan is up 4.38%. Indonesia and South Korea are flat while Hong Kong and Taiwan are down about 1%.
The iShares family of ETFs has 20 country-specific ETFs for most of these countries and investors may use closed-ended exchange-traded funds for those not covered by conventioanl ETFs. Two examples are the Thai Fund (TF) and the Indonesian Fund (IF). Be careful to watch the premiums some of these are trading relative to their net asset value.
By Carl Delfeld of the Chartwell ETF Advisor
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