It has been less than a month and a half since Standard & Poor's stripped Brazil of an investment-grade credit rating, sending Latin America's largest economy to junk status. Since then, market participants have speculated about which emerging market will be next to lose an investment-grade rating.

As some recent media reports suggest, the emerging markets patch has plenty of candidates that could suffer ratings downgrades, including Turkey. In May, S&P downgraded its rating on Turkey's lira, one of this year's worst-performing emerging markets currencies to "BBB-/A-3" from "BBB/A-2.” At the time, the ratings agency said there is in a one-in-three chance it could downgrade Turkey's sovereign in six to 12 months. 

Turkey may have some competition from South Africa for next emerging market to see its sovereign credit rating sent to junk. With the iShares MSCI South Africa ETF (NYSE: EZA) down 17 percent over the past six months, it is easy to see why.

“South Africa took a step closer to another credit-rating downgrade as a slowing economy forced Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene to boost debt at the same time that mounting spending pressures fueled protests against the government,” reports Bloomberg. 

The $408.2 million EZA is not significantly exposed to those swooning metals as the materials sector accounts for just 5.5 percent of the ETF's weight. Five other sectors command bigger weights in the lone South Africa-specific ETF.