Investors in shipping lead the pack

Article Excerpt

An varied group of stock ETFs led the performance tables in October 2019. Apart from ETFs investing in countries such as Russia, Brazil, Germany and Greece, the Invesco Shipping ETF (SEA) made it to the top end of the leaderboard. Investors in the iShares MSCI Russia ETF (ERUS) saw a 7.2% gain, while those in Invesco Shipping ETF (SEA) added 9.2%. The shipping ETF is an important barometer of global trade and is driven by the large global shipping companies such as AP Moeller-Maersk and Nippon OSK Lines. Note that the Baltic Dry Index and Baltic Tanker indexes have moved substantially higher since June; this has happened despite ongoing tariff disputes. On the other end of the spectrum, returns for investors in Chilean, Turkey and Argentinian ETFs suffered a bad month. The iShares Chile ETF (ECH) was down by 7.8% while the iShares Turkey ETF (TUR) lost 7.5%. Marijuana ETFs also lost further ground with the Horizons Marijuana ETF (HMMJ) down 12.1% and the ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF (MJ) dropping 6.6%. At the broad market level,…