Preface to all four parts: I’ve taken some favorite exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and broken them into groups. I’ll share a few thoughts about each of these below, and as always, clicking on any chart will make it fill your screen, whatever size that may be.
Let’s jump outside North America and look at the big funds.
1. Emerging Markets
The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSE:EEM) has been incredibly weak for a very long time, and it couldn’t even muster getting past that horizontal last week, even at the market’s strongest.
2. Worldwide Equities
The worldwide equities, via iShares MSCI EAFE ETF (NYSE:EFA), had been hammering out a fantastic series of increasingly dramatic lower lows and lower highs, with the added bonus of being perfectly beneath the long-term trendline, shown below in blue.
I’ve put the similar IEFA just beneath it.
3. IEFA
iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (NYSE:IEFA)
4. Japan
Japan, via iShares MSCI Japan ETF (NYSE:EWJ), whose debt burden is even more gargantuan than ours, has had a suffocating stock market for many months.
5. Brazil
Brazil has been relatively strong, thanks to energy, but if crude oil ever falters, I suspect this country fund—via iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (NYSE:EWZ)—will get absolutely creamed.
6. China
Finally, in spite of “The National Team,” China—iShares China Large-Cap ETF (NYSE:FXI)—remains in wipeout mode. All of these drops are, I believe, the early stages of what is going to be a very lengthy bear market worldwide.
