Emerging markets—specifically Argentina, Russia, Brazil and Pakistan—were the places to be in the first half of 2016, while Italy suffered one of the biggest declines, in part due to worries about the country’s banking sector.

The chart below shows the performance—in local currency terms—by national and regional stock market indexes tracked by Dow Jones.

Argentina tops the list. The nation’s Merval index AR:MERV was revived after Argentine President Mauricio Macri took office in December. The International Monetary Fund expects the country’s economy to contract around 1% this year before growing 2.8% in 2017.

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Macri has eliminated most capital controls and moved to reach a deal with creditors, helping to dispel a cloud that has lingered over the country since its 2001 default. Index-provider MSCI in June said it would begin a 12-month review to decide whether to promote Argentina to emerging-market status from its frontier-market index.

The table leaves out Peru, which saw the S&P/BVL General Peru index rise nearly 40% in the first half. Peru was retained in the MSCI emerging-market index.

U.S. stocks ended a tumultuous first half up modestly from where they started. Stocks tanked hard in the opening weeks of 2016, bottoming in February and then rebounding sharply.

The U.K.’s Brexit vote sent shares in Europe and the U.S. dropping again last Friday and Monday, though that was followed by a sharp rebound. The S&P 500 SPX, -1.11% ended the first half up 2.7% from where it ended 2015.

The FTSE 100 UKX, -2.65% , meanwhile, rebounded past its pre-Brexit top and ended the first half up 4.2%. The gain, of course, would be less impressive in dollar terms following the pound’s GBPUSD, -0.50% plunge to a 31-year low in the wake of the Brexit vote.

It was a tough half for other major European equity markets, particularly Italy, which saw the FTSE MIB XX:I945 drop more than 24%. Worries about Italy’s banking sector contributed to the drop.