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ETF Leaders and Laggards
May 27, 2008
SAN DIEGO (ETFguide.com) – If you want to know what’s happening in the financial markets, the performance of the top and bottom performing exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will help you to find the answer.
U.S. stocks as measured by three barometers - the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrials, and Nasdaq-100 – are all sluggish so far this year.
The SPDRs (Ticker: SPY), which follow the S&P has declined by 5.9 percent, the Dow DIAMONDS (Ticker: DIA) are off by 6 percent, and the PowerShares QQQ Trust (Ticker: QQQQ) has lost 5.9 percent.
Foreign and developing country equities are also in negative territory, but to a lesser extent.
International stocks as tracked by the MSCI EAFE index via Vanguard’s ETF (Ticker: VEA) are down by 2.1 percent and emerging markets stocks (Ticker: VWO) are off by 1.9 percent.
Latin American stocks (Ticker: GML), which have increased by 16.7 percent, have bucked the trend.
Other bright spots continue to be commodities and metals.
The iShares S&P GSCI Commodity Indexed Trust (Ticker: GSG) has jumped 32.5 percent because of its exposure to crude oil, natural gas, and agricultural commodities.
After cracking the $1,000 per ounce mark in March, gold has since retreated, but the SPDR Gold Trust (Ticker: GLD) is still up by 10.6 percent.
Strong performing S&P industry sectors include energy stocks (Ticker: XLE) and basic materials (Ticker: XLB). XLE is ahead by 8.7 percent and XLB by 5.2 percent.
Among the underperforming areas are Chinese stocks and regional banks. The SPDR S&P China ETF (Ticker: GXC) has dropped 14.6 percent and the KBW Regional Bank ETF (Ticker: KRE) has lost 11.8 percent.
Other weak performing areas include S&P healthcare stocks (Ticker: XLV), which are off by 11.2 percent and S&P financials (Ticker: XLF) down by 14.8 percent.
*All performance figures are year-to-date through market close of May 23rd, 2008. Leveraged and inverse performing ETFs not included.
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