The five best performing foreign bank ADRs Year-To-Date (YTD) as of February 11th are:

1. Banco of Chile(BCH)
YTD Change: 11.93%

2. Mizuho Financial (MFG)
YTD Change: 8.99%

3. Royal Bank of Scotland(RBS)
YTD Change: 8.20%

4. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial (MTU)
YTD Change: 3.66%

5. Corpbanca (BCA)
YTD Change: 0.59%

The five worst performing foreign bank ADRs Year-To-Date (YTD) as of February 11th are:

1. Banco Macro (BMA)
YTD Change: -14.42%

2. UBS (UBS)
YTD Change: -17.86%

3. Banco Santander S.A (STD)
YTD Change: -18.25%

4. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA)
YTD Change: -23.61%

5. National Bank of Greece (NBG)
YTD Change: -23.80%

Banco of Chile(BCH) is the best performer with a return of about 12%. National Bank of Greece (NBG) is the worst performing foreign bank ADR with a loss of about 24%. This is not surprising since Greece is suffering from its huge debt and investors are betting against Greek equities. Today EU leaders announced that they would help Greece but have not mentioned any specific aid package. The big fat Greek debt saga may continue for a while and accordingly Greek equities would remain highly volatile. Spain is one of the high deficit countries in Europe together with Portugal, Ireland and Greece (“PIGS”). Hence Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria(BBVA) and Banco Santander (STD) of Spain are also down significantly so far this year.