Country ETFs Looking for Record Years

Sep 16, 2025

Now in the home stretch of Q3, international stocks have had a banner year in 2025. Whereas the United States’ S&P 500 (SPY) is currently up 12.7% year to date, the MSCI All World Ex. US ETFs (ACWX) have gained well over 24% in that same span.  Looking at individual country ETFs in the iShares MSCI family, there have been some monumental winners.  For example, Italy (EWI) is up over 45% on a year to date basis. That puts it on pace for the ETF’s largest annual gain on record (it began trading in March 1996) if it holds. The ETF tracking Spain (EWP) has similarly been around since the late 1990s, and its 58% gain this year narrowly beats the 55.8% gain observed in 2003 for its best year on record.  Elsewhere in Europe, Norway (ENOR) and Poland (EPOL) are likewise sitting on what would be record gains, although those ETFs have much less extensive histories of a little more than a decade. Finally, we would note that outside of Europe, there is one other country whose tracking ETF is looking for a record. That is South Africa (EZA) which is currently up 45.8%. While that is in fact looking to be a record annual gain, it’s by a much more narrow margin than the others.  In 2009, EZA rose 45.3% which is only 50 bps of underperformance relative to this year.