2011 Country Equity Market Performance

The average year-to-date stock market performance of the 81 countries listed below is 1.33%.  (For each country we use its most widely followed index.)  So far, a lot of the countries that struggled in 2010 are on the leaderboard in 2011.  The average country listed gained 15.33% in 2010, but three of the four best performing countries so far this year all saw double-digit percentage declines last year.  Italy ranks second overall (behind Nigeria's 12.11%) with a gain of 9.83% so far this year.  The country's FTSE MIB index declined 13.23% in 2010.  After falling 17.43% in 2010, Spain is up 9.70% this year.  And Greece, which dropped 35.62% last year, is up 9.53% YTD and ranks 4th overall.

Just over 30% of the countries shown are down so far this year.  Bangladesh has been the worst performer in 2011 with a decline of 23.69% year to date.  The country was the 2nd best performer in 2010 behind Sri Lanka with a gain of 82.79%.  With its uprising this month, Tunisia is the only other country down more than 10%.

Of the G7 countries, Italy ranks first, followed by France (+6%), the US (+2.57%), Germany (+2.22%), and Japan (+1.14%).  The UK ranks second to last of the G7 countries with a gain of 0.74%.  Canada ranks dead last and is the only G7 country that is down year to date (-0.69%).

Looking at the BRICs, China continues to struggle with a year-to-date decline of 4% after falling 14.31% in 2010.  India is also struggling with a decline of 6.62%, but unlike China, India saw nice gains last year.  Russia is currently the top performing BRIC country with a year-to-date gain of 5.39%, and Brazil is just barely in the black at +0.12%.