Russell Greater China Index: Spring Slowdown

SEATTLE, WA--(Korea Newswire)--After getting off to a strong start in 2012, with returns of +10.1% for January and +7.9% for February, the Russell Greater China Index has seen a Spring slowdown, returning (-4.8%) in March, (-0.3%) in April and is off (-5.8%) for May month-to-date as of May 14th.

Despite the negative performance in recent months, the Index is still positive year-to-date, with a +6.4% return. Year-to-date as of May 14th within the Russell Greater China Index, the lead sector performers are Technology (+13.1%), Healthcare (+8.0%) and Consumer Discretionary (+7.6%).

Within the Index, for May month-to-date as of May 14th, the Energy sector (-10.5%) is off the most, followed by the Consumer Discretionary (-7.4%) and Producer Durables (-7.0%) sectors.

Interestingly, Europe has seen a similar Spring slowdown as demonstrated by the Russell Developed Europe Index, with the broad index showing negative returns in March, April and May month-to-date with all sectors negative so far in May.

“As shown by the Russell Greater China Index, stocks in the Greater China region -- Hong Kong, China-H and Taiwan -- have taken a breather after a strong run in the early part of the year,” said Sarah Lien, Asia-based senior research analyst for Russell Investments. “There appear to be mixed signals in this market: positive developments in terms of property values yet the Chinese government's lowered growth target cannot be ignored. Europe, too, has followed a similar pattern as macro concerns have heightened over the last few months to expunge some of the early gains. It appears that macro headwinds continue to weigh upon both markets.”

The Russell Global Index includes more than 10,000 securities in 48 countries and covers 98% of the investable global market. All securities in the benchmark are classified according to size, region, country and sector. Daily Returns for the main components are available here: http://www.russell.com/indexes/data/daily_total_returns_global.asp

Disclaimer: http://www.russell.com/indexes/about/index_alerts.asp#disclaimer

Website: http://www.russell.com

This is a news release distributed by Korea Newswire on behalf of this company.