Among the foreign bank stocks trading on the US exchanges, all the Latin American bank stocks are down year-to-date as of last Friday (July 16, 2021) in addition to Credit Sussie (CS) of Switzerland. Credit Sussie is down about 24% due to multiple corruption and other charges currently ongoing against the bank. Chilean banks plunged dramatically a few months ago due to political issues there. South America’s economic powerhouse with a strong democratic political system has been rocked by protests last year and continues to struggle despite a powerful rally in copper prices this year. Chile is the world’s largest copper exporter.
Update (9/4/22): On The Performance of Foreign Foreign Bank Stocks Year-to-Date
Similarly Colombia has also suffered its share of protests in the past few months and the country is struggling with the onslaught of the raging Covid-19. Brazil continues to prove that it is “the country of the future” and always remain so. Argentina is unable to shake-off its economic and structural issues for many years now and will remain the basket case of mismanagement. Ironically the country has the largest concentration of Italians that immigrated there many decades ago. Italy used to a poster child for economic problems just a few years ago during the many European sovereign debt crisis. Italy was part of the “PIIGS” countries which included Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.
Overall political risk is a major in emerging market investing and Latin American proves that point so clearly.
The year-to-date returns of Latin American bank stocks trading on the US exchanges are shown below:
| S.No. | Bank Name | Ticker | Last Friday Close Price | Year-to-Date Change(%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Itau Corpbanca | ITCB | $3.65 | -26.26% |
| 2 | Bancolombia | CIB | $30.14 | -24.99% |
| 3 | Credicorp Ltd | BAP | $118.80 | -24.62% |
| 4 | Banco de Chile | BCH | $17.66 | -13.35% |
| 5 | Banco Bradesco | BBD | $4.73 | -10.08% |
| 6 | Banco Santander Brasil | BSBR | $7.79 | -9.84% |
| 7 | Banco Macro | BMA | $14.10 | -9.44% |
| 8 | Itau Unibanco | ITUB | $5.64 | -7.39% |
| 9 | Grupo Financiero Galicia | GGAL | $8.18 | -6.41% |
| 10 | Banco Santander Chile | BSAC | $17.83 | -6.11% |
| 11 | Banco BBVA Argentina S.A. | BBAR | $3.14 | -2.18% |
| 12 | Foreign Trade Bank of Latin America Inc | BLX | $15.23 | -2.06% |
Source: BNY Mellon
Disclosure: Long CIB, ITCB, BBD, ITUB and BCH
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