The Great White North

The U.S.markets aren't the only ones that have been having a blah year. The S&P 500 is in negative territory for the year, albeit just barely, at negative 0.37 percent. But the broadest measures of the European, Japanese and Chinese markets have also been hovering around zero.

The big exception? Canada. The iShares MSCI Canada ETF, which tracks performance of large and mid-sized Canadian companies, is up more than 11 percent since the beginning of the year.

Canada's economy has been surprisingly robust this year. Strong consumer spending and export growth have been helped along by a Canadian dollar that has shed about 13 percent of its value against its U.S. counterpart since the beginning of 2015.