The US Equity market has certainly been the dominate area of the market over the course of the past few years, and 2013 hasn’t been any different. The S&P 500 [ SPX ] is up 25.87% in 2013 (through 12/3/2013), which has outperformed the two most widely followed International Equity benchmarks, the MSCI EAFE Index and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index which have returns of 16.80% and -3.96%, respectively, in 2013. Needless to say, a vast majority of the International Equity ETFs have underperformed the S&P 500 this year; however, there are a few that have managed to outpace this US Equity benchmark. In total, out of the 170 International Equity ETFs (excluding leveraged and inverse funds) there are only 10 with returns superior to the S&P 500 this year. At the top of that list are a couple of Chinese equity ETFs, the PowerShares Golden Dragon Halter ETF [ PGJ ] and the Guggenheim China Technology ETF [ CQQQ ], both of which are up more than 50% this year. Other ETFs on this list include a couple of Japanese Equity that are currency hedged, the db-X MSCI Japan Currency Hedged Equity Fund [ DBJP ] and the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund [ DXJ ], which are up 40.27% and 35.03%, respectively.
A couple of the surprising names on this list are the SPDR S&P International Telecommunications Sector [ IST ], which is up 29.68% and has been driven largely by the performance of the Vodafone [ VOD ], which accounts for more than 20% of the fund and is up nearly 47% this year. Also, the PowerShares DWA Developed Markets Momentum ETF [ PIZ ] is up 27.61% so far in 2013, which has given another buy signal on its chart at $26 to hit a new 52-week high and is close to the all-time high this fund saw back in October 2007 at $27. Lastly, Greece [ GREK ] made the list of International ETFs outperforming the S&P 500 this year with a return of 26.38%.