Greece led the performance of developed market stock markets returning 15.43% in October, data from S&P Dow Jones Indices shows, before it was
downgraded to emerging market status last week.
Returning 11.74% over the same time, Italy ranked second, and Spain third with 9%. Sweden, which returned 0.45% ranked third from the bottom, followed by Israel, which returned 0.43%, and Japan, which lost 0.04%.
India was the best-performing emerging market, returning 11.07%, followed by Egypt, which returned 9.5%, and the Czech Republic, which returned 9.44%. Returning 2.09%, Hungary was on the bottom of the table, third only to Chile, which returned 0.33%, and Colombia, which lost 0.24%.
S&P Dow Jones Indices says 44 of the 46 markets were up in October, despite the US shutdown and a technical default looming in January.
Greece added 15.43% to lead all markets year-to-date, with a 40.72% gain. Its three-year performance, however, still shows a 35.87% loss.
Year-to-date gains for developed markets stand at 20.19%.
Emerging markets added 4.69% year-to-date and Colombia was the sole decliner. The gains made in October helped emerging markets reduce their year-to-date decline to 1.19%, though half the markets remain in the red year-to-date.
Last week, S&P Indices reclassified Greece from developed to emerging market. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were reclassified from frontier markets to emerging markets, respectively.
Meanwhile, South Korea and Taiwan will be designated as developed and emerging markets, respectively, across all global benchmarks bringing consistency across S&P and Dow Jones branded indices.
Egypt and Morocco will remain emerging markets. Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman will remain frontier markets. Saudi Arabia will remain classified as a standalone market.
It has not made any changes to the treatment of Chinese A-shares. S&P Dow Jones Indices will continue to monitor these markets closely for any future changes.
Sentiment among European institutional investors rose 10.2 points in October to 111.9, well above the neutral score of 100 on the State Street Investor Confidence Index (ICI). In contrast, sentiment among North American institutional investors dropped 17.8 points to 86.5.
©2013 funds europe
