ETF Expert

Money has been flowing out of stock assets at a steady pace. Macroeconomic data has been decidedly weak. And unless you hopped aboard the gravy “grains” this past week, a Great White took a bite out of your portfolio.

(Or maybe a brown bear is responsible for the mauling. I don’t think it was a brown bear, though. So let’s just call it a shark.)

For the second time since the U.S. stock correction began in late April, Mr. Market cried, “Uncle.” The first time was back in mid-June, when the S&P 500 briefly climbed back above its 200-day trendline. It didn’t last, though.

Here in August, Mr. Market literally begged Uncle Ben Bernanke for more monetary stimulus at Tuesday’s Fed meeting. The Fed Chairman complied, yet U.S. stocks still finished out the week with huge losses.

Worse yet, the S&P 500 SPDR Trust (SPY) has failed to hold above its 200-day moving average on two separate occasions. Technicians must be baffled by the multiple whipsaws — a whipsaw occuring when a prospective “buy signal” is quickly overturned by a “sell signal.”

An eternal optimist might point out that it’s virtually impossible to find a 20-year rolling return where stock assets haven’t achieved an excess return/gain over U.S. 10-year treasuries. One might also be taken in by the reality that economic growth as anemic as 2% is still plenty strong for corporations to grow their profits/revenues.

With that said, it’s impossible to ignore several overarching facts about stock ETFs right now. First, emerging market ETFs are losing less on the downside and they are making more on the upside; that’s a better risk-reward scenario. Second, most emerging market ETFs (e.g., individual countries, regions, thematic, etc.) are experiencing technical uptrends.

Here’s a breakdown of 10 popular ETFs — 5 emergers and 5 U.S. In addition to identifying performance on the week, I’ve noted the “Risk Grade” from RiskGrades.com. (Note: The lower the number, the lower the standardized risk.)

You can listen to the ETF Expert Radio Show “LIVE”, via podcast or on your iPod. You can review more ETF Expert features here.

Tags | "emerging etfs", "indonesia wtf", "turkey etf", Chile ETF, Thailand ETF