Korea and China are this year's best-performing markets out of a roster of single-country indices from index compiler MSCI.
In the first six months of the year, the MSCI China index returned 25% while the Korea index gained nearly 29%. In contrast, the broad market returned less than 12% in the period.
“Year to date, the best performing country has been Korea and the worst, Canada,” said MSCI in a statement, adding that on a global basis, the best-performing sector this year has been information technology.
Despite its good performance, the Korean index is still the cheapest out of the major country indices, with a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 9.4. The most expensive market, the US, has a comparable ratio of 15.9.
The best-performing country in the month of June was Canada while the worst performer was the UK.
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