ETF Leaders and Laggards
June 20, 2008

SAN DIEGO (ETFguide.com) – If you want to know what’s happening in the financial markets, the performance of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will tell you 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 8.1 percent, the Dow DIAMONDS (Ticker: DIA) are off by 9 percent, and the PowerShares QQQ Trust (Ticker: QQQQ) has lost 4.8 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 7.9 percent and emerging markets stocks (Ticker: VWO) are off by 7.1 percent.

Latin American stocks (Ticker: GML), which have increased by 10.9 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 vaulted ahead 35.3 percent because of its exposure to crude oil, natural gas, and agricultural commodities.

The energy sector within commodities continues to post strong performance. The PowerShares DB Energy Fund (Ticker: DBE) is ahead by 45.9 percent. The underlying index contains futures contracts on light sweet crude oil, heating oil, Brent crude oil, RBOB Gasoline and natural gas.

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 7.2 percent.

Strong performing S&P industry sectors include energy stocks (Ticker: XLE) and basic materials (Ticker: XLB). XLE is ahead by 9.1 percent and XLB by 6.8 percent.

In the fixed income market, the iShares Lehman Aggregate Bond Fund (Ticker: AGG) is off by 1.6 percent. The fund follows the performance of the U.S. investment grade bonds market, which includes investment grade U.S. Government bonds, investment grade corporate bonds, mortgage pass-through securities and asset-backed securities. The securities are denominated in US dollars and must be fixed rate nonconvertible.

Among the underperforming areas are Chinese stocks and regional banks. The SPDR S&P China ETF (Ticker: GXC) has dropped 20.2 percent and the KBW Regional Bank ETF (Ticker: KRE) has lost 22.8 percent.

Other weak performing areas include S&P healthcare stocks (Ticker: XLV), which are off by 13.4 percent and S&P financials (Ticker: XLF) down by 21.3 percent.

*All performance figures are year-to-date through market close of June 19th, 2008. Leveraged and inverse performing ETFs not included.

Top 5 Most Popular Articles:

The Abyss of ETF Oblivion

Popular Benchmarks May not be Best Portfolio Building Blocks

Turning Mutual Fund Losers into Winners

ETF Mutual Funds - Do more fees equal better performance?

Profiting from the New Energy Movement