With market swings the name of the game since mid-July, there are positive year-to-date performance figures worthy of note. Equity markets in the world's developing economies were up nearly 18 percent, according to Standard & Poor's research. And emerging markets experienced more than 46 percent growth through August 31, 2007. This comes despite market declines in August of about 2 percent and 0.25 percent respectively.
As for specific mutual funds and fund groups, four funds with a China focus top Lipper's year-to-date performance report through September 6:o AIM China Fund (A);o Dreyfus Premier Greater China (A);o Nationwide China Opportunities (A); ando Matthews Asian China.
These funds' total reinvestment results are each up more than 50 percent year to date, Lipper says. Leading U.S. fixed-income funds are ahead about 6 percent to 6.59 percent. In the past 52 weeks, each of the four China funds has gained at least 96 percent.
According to Lipper, the 64 funds in its China-region category have grown an average of 81 percent in the 52-week period ended September 6; they are up 39 percent year to date. Pacific funds, excluding Japan, have increased nearly 48 percent in the last 12 months and 26 percent year to date.
On a five-year basis, China-region funds have returned more than 32 percent annually, as have emerging market funds. Latin American funds, though, have five-year returns of nearly 45 percent. T. Rowe Price's Latin America Fund has three-year annualized returns of about 58 percent.
