Reviewing Global Equity Performance In January

The average stock in the MSCI World Index fell by 1.2% in January. 11 of the 24 industry groups had positive price performance, led by pharmaceuticals, biotechnology & life sciences by a wide margin (5.1%). Food, beverage and tobacco (3%) and real estate (2.8%) were the second and third best performing groups.  On the flip side, the energy industry was the worst performing group as it was down 7.4% in January. Last month's poor performance brings energy's one year performance to -21.4%. Banks (-5.9%) were the second worst performing industry and diversified financials (-5.4%) were the third worst.

MSCI World Performance For January By Industry Group


The average stock in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index squeaked out a small gain of 0.1% in January. The household & personal products industry managed to gain 11.9% in January, slightly outpacing the software services (8.6%) and commercial & professional services (8.4%). Consumer services (4.4%) was the worst performing industry followed by utilities (-3.6%) and banks (3.4%). 15 of the 24 industry groups in the MSCI EM were higher in January.

MSCI Emerging Markets Performance For January By Industry Group


If we break out equity performance by country index (in USD), India was the best performer at 8.7%.  Overall, emerging market country indices performed better as the four best performing countries were all from emerging markets (Philippines, Thailand and South Africa). MSCI Hong Kong was the fifth best performing country index. Greece (-24.5%) was the worst performing country index by quite a bit. MSCI Greece is now down 47.8% over the past year. Austria, Colombia, Brazil and the Czech Republic all dropped by at least 8% in January.  The equal-weighted MSCI USA index dropped by 3.2% and was the 32nd best performing country index in January.

MSCI Country Performance For January