It seems like no matter what area of the world you look at, the equity markets are on fire. Be it Asia, Europe or the United States, all three have created a trio of opportunities over the past year.

To see just how well each region has done in the past year, we need to look at three charts. The following are 52-week performance charts of the iShares MSCI Pacific Ex-Japan (EPP), the iShares S&P Europe 350 Index (IEV) and the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY).

As you can see, all three of these region-specific exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen big gains during the past year, and all three trade at or very close to their respective 52-week highs. The question now, however, is how long will this global bull run in stocks last. 

Of course, nobody can say for certain, though I suspect there still may be some upside in all three regions in the short run. Over the long term, however, I think the real growth is going to be in Asia.

China is just too powerful of an economic force to deny, and the growth in stocks based in China and/or that feed the country’s incredible demand for basic materials likely will be the last region standing in the battle for global stock returns over the next few years. As such, we all should be watching the universe of Asian ETFs very closely for signs of new, sustainable investment opportunities.