Best Performing Stock Markets in the World in 2009 YTD (mutual fund, invest, companies)

[thisguy]

Just some eye candy, best performance year to date by country

BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) lead the pack with 70 to 126% gains
US in the back half of the listing

Fund My Mutual Fund: Best Performing Stock Markets by Country in 2009

[treasurekidd]

That's because the US is a mature market, so naturally growth will lag some of the developing markets. A two year olds growth rate is faster than a 20 year old, but that doesn't make the 2 year old bigger, right?

[Indurain]

FTSE and DOW are doing well these days.

FTSE broke 5,300 barrier and the DOW is around 10,300 barrier.

Big improvement from this time last year.

[Teak]

The % increase in a country's stock market is just one metric to consider. You also need to look at the size of the market and its liquidity. If Peru has run up 73% this year (to which date?), then it could just as well go down 50-70% next year. Foreign money inflows often swamp the local investors and that foreign money flows out just as fast.

I am not against investing in small emerging markets, just try to do it for the long-term. In the short-term it is probably worse than gambling. Here in Malaysia -whose market is probably bigger than Peru's- I would not invest since the market is heavily weighted towards a few government-linked companies. Foreign inflows drove it very high in 1997, and then when the money flowed out, the market crashed by ~75%. Small, local investors got burned and spooked, and stopped investing, when at the lows they should have put in new money.