This has been a pretty rough year for the global stock market. Several China-driven offhand events causing global market rout in mid-year, growth worries in global superpowers like the Euro zone, Japan and Canada, Greek debt deal drama, the vicious cycle of oil price declines, commodity market upheaval, and finally the Fed rate hike in almost a decade kept the global markets edgy throughout the year.

The impact of these events was harsh on the bourses. SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) has lost about 1% so far this year (as of December 22, 2015), Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF (VGK – ETF report) has shed about 5.1% during the same timeframe, iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM) has retreated as much as 16.9%, iShares MSCI All Country Asia ex Japan (AAXJ) has plummeted 11.5% and all-world ETF iShares MSCI ACWI (ACWI) has gone down over 4.7%.

The price performance of these region-based ETFs was enough to tag 2015 as a down year for global stocks, on an average.

In fact, as China devalued its currency yuan in a historic move in mid August, there was a bloodbath in global equities. The U.S. and Asian stocks experienced a three-year low monthly performance in August. Europe saw the most horrible month since the 2011 debt debacle. Commodities crumbled to multi-year lows on demand issues and hit hard all commodity-rich nations.

Still, the global market recouped some of its losses as the ECB extended its QE policy, BoJ made pro-growth changes in its accommodative policies and the Fed enacted a lift-off citing steady U.S. economic growth in the latter part of the year (read: Watch These Country ETFs Rebounding to Start Q4).  

These may give enough reasons to investors to look for international ETF survivors this year. For them, we have highlighted five ETFs that have gained at least 6% so far this year (as of December 22, 2015) defying the broad-based gloom.

WisdomTree Intl Hedged Quality Div Growth ETF (IHDG)

While the Fed had been preparing for policy tightening the entire year and finally hiked rates, other developed economies of the world and a few emerging economies are going the opposite direction. Due to growth issues, global superpowers like Europe, Japan and Australia are presently pursuing easy money policies (read: 11 Most Popular Currency Hedged ETFs).
 
As a result, stocks of these developed nations got an extra boost. Also, a currency-hedged approach was essential to set off the effect of a surging greenback. IHDG serves both aspects. Moreover, IHDG takes care of investors’ income too as the fund selects dividend-paying companies with growth features in the developed world ex U.S. and Canada. This Zacks ETF Rank #3 (Hold) ETF was up over 10% so far in 2015.
 
SPDR SP International Consumer Staples Sector ETF (IPS)