With a significant portion of its economy invested in energy, Russia’s economy and its related ETFs have become vulnerable to the global price swings of oil prices. As a result, the government is making an effort to diversify as it plans innovation and modernization.

The Russian economy slipped from its net worth of $1.7 trillion in 2008 to $1.2 trillion because of the financial crisis, writes Steve Sedgwick for CNBC. President Dmitry Medvedev has promised modernization, but the reality is that the country is still heavily reliant on its commodity-based economy.

We previously examined the performance of various country-specific ETFs in 2010 and Japan (EWJ) and Russia (RSX) were standouts. This trend has shown no sign of abating, and may well continue throughout 2010. In particular Japan, which has been a "dead money" market for about 20 years now, may be poised for relative outperformance gains in 2010 vis-a-vis some other major country ETFs.

The other international ETFs profiled in the chart include India (PIN) in purple, Canada (EWC) in white, Australia (EWA) in blue, China (FXI) in green, Germany (EWG) in orange, and Brazil (EWZ) in yellow. Brazil is the laggard of these countries thus far this calendar year.

Most equity indices across the globe broke their short-term uptrends and moved below their 50-day moving averages on the most recent downturn. Russia's main equity market index, the RTS, bucked the trend and held support at its 50-DMA, however. Since bouncing off of its 50-day, Russia has done well and continues to look good from a technical perspective. The ETF that tracks Russia (RSX) looks about the same.