ETF Market Summary: Week Ending June 1st 2007

Dollar-Weighted ETF/CEF Category Return

    A combination of surprisingly tame inflation data, strong payroll numbers, and falling energy prices resulted in a week of broad market gains.  Over the week, the largest gainers were real estate, Latin America, and emerging market funds by far.  Small caps, emerging markets, commodities, and retail funds ended the week with strong inflows as well.  A relatively quiet week and falling energy prices seems to have tempted large numbers of investors back into these higher-return assets, especially given their possibly oversold prices after last week's volatility.

    To the downside on the week were only short funds; no other category ended red or even unchanged.  The worst performing categories, though still positive, were healthcare, utilities, currency, convertible, dividend, and large caps.  With the VIX indicating overall market volatility fell 7% and the RVX indicating that small cap volatility fell 2%, it's not surprising that the more conservative asset classes saw a slow weak.  It is interesting to note, however, that healthcare was actually more negatively correlated on the week than short funds.  This is perhaps the result of the difference in performance between the S&P and the other indexes on which there are short ETFs, but such a strongly negative correlation is a trend that warrants further attention.

Sector Day Week Month YTD Day $ Week Correlation to SPY
Short 0.12% -4.61% -2.98% -1.76% 999 -38.56%
Healthcare 0.12% 0.41% 0.74% 1.10% 142 -46.55%
Currency -0.01% 0.79% 0.63% 0.49% 59 -33.38%
Convertible 0.12% 0.93% -0.26% 0.30% 14 10.21%
Utilities -0.56% 1.32% -1.16% 0.91% 603 15.50%
Dividend 0.50% 1.58% 1.26% 0.74% 43 56.37%
Large Cap 0.27% 1.74% 3.37% 0.39% 1621 64.84%
Biotech 0.37% 1.93% -1.82% 0.78% 324 -38.90%
Consumer Goods & Services 0.56% 2.06% 2.15% 0.39% 131 33.00%
MSCI 0.65% 2.36% 2.22% 10.95% 278 0.33%
Japan 0.55% 2.42% 2.01% 0.40% 180 -39.30%
Europe 0.49% 2.59% 2.50% 0.49% 201 -16.02%
Asia 0.91% 2.93% 1.52% 1.31% 49 -11.33%
Retail 1.33% 3.30% 3.67% 2.58% 612 28.69%
Small Cap 0.52% 3.36% 2.93% 0.25% 6495 24.69%
Commodities & Resources 1.53% 3.37% -0.74% 0.65% 606 -18.40%
Energy 0.91% 3.38% 6.46% 1.30% 880 28.79%
Mid Cap 0.42% 3.39% 3.71% 0.55% 719 15.60%
Call/Write 0.70% 3.81% 3.44% 2.26% 3 -0.77%
Transports 0.58% 3.86% 3.73% 14.68% 21 -95.20%
Infrastructure 0.60% 3.94% 2.96% 9.85% 3 14.84%
China 1.82% 4.11% 4.61% -0.29% 269 -27.83%
Russia 1.80% 4.73% -2.30% -7.33% 21 -4.39%
Emerging Markets 2.47% 5.06% 4.34% 1.00% 1097 7.80%
Real Estate 0.04% 6.09% -0.64% 0.10% 393 53.21%
Latin America 3.14% 8.31% 10.89% 9.09% 123 57.28%

Top 10 ETF/CEF Gainers/Losers

    As was made clear above, almost all of the large losers on the week were short funds, especially those that are leveraged.  Standing out was only the BlackRock Municipal Bond Trust BBK, which represents the ongoing weakness I highlighted last week in the municipal CEF market for Nuveen and BlackRock.  Note again that the BlackRock fund lost just shy of 10% on very high relative volume.

    Those that performed best this week were mainly funds that derived income from real estate or Latin America.  Exceptions include the Market Vectors Steel tracker SLX, which posted nearly 8.5% on the week, the Internet Infrastructure Holders IIH, and the Korean CEF KF.

Symbol Day Week Month YTD Day $ Week $ Month $ Day / Avg. Week $ MA 20 Price MA 20 Vol Week SPY Corr
Lowest                      
SRS -0.04% -11.68% 0.71% NaN 7 98 228 44.53% -4.45% -29.24% -95.32%
BBK -6.36% -9.24% -11.27% -5.42% 5 10 16 310.24% -10.04% 645.35% -79.13%
SMN -1.50% -7.96% -10.65% NaN 0 2 7 20.35% -6.03% -77.30% -95.54%
SKK -1.67% -7.13% -6.22% NaN 1 4 16 99.74% -5.98% -4.84% -97.02%
SDD -1.79% -6.83% -5.45% NaN 1 7 28 128.22% -5.08% 18.28% -98.11%
SJH -1.84% -6.78% -4.13% NaN 0 2 12 114.16% -4.70% -30.49% -97.93%
MZZ -1.04% -6.63% -6.75% -20.65% 12 103 296 72.03% -4.91% -7.62% -98.19%
TWM -1.03% -6.37% -5.39% NaN 34 238 761 86.32% -4.93% -0.85% -97.98%
REW -0.79% -6.35% -4.54% NaN 0 1 2 12.35% -3.01% -81.47% -97.37%
DUG -1.75% -6.11% -10.34% NaN 3 40 78 52.62% -6.66% -0.91% -91.81%
Highest                      
GML 2.33% 7.73% 9.80% NaN 0 3 9 95.81% 5.84% -0.68% 96.64%
LDF 2.68% 8.05% 11.31% 16.10% 1 7 20 106.43% 6.38% 13.24% 95.33%
IIH 0.37% 8.12% 8.98% 3.02% 0 2 14 119.02% 6.66% -35.57% 95.19%
ILF 3.17% 8.37% 10.97% 27.66% 120 456 1361 157.61% 6.75% 73.63% 96.12%
UYM 2.02% 8.42% 11.69% NaN 1 3 10 113.35% 6.56% 25.96% 96.56%
SLX 2.67% 8.46% 10.97% 50.99% 11 51 168 125.39% 5.86% 26.49% 92.66%
RWF 2.56% 8.81% -2.00% -2.15% 2 12 35 83.99% 2.32% -4.90% 96.17%
EWZ 3.22% 8.99% 12.29% 31.05% 508 2916 10318 104.52% 7.29% -3.45% 95.91%
KF 3.08% 9.01% 9.76% 17.12% 4 16 45 147.20% 7.81% 68.08% 90.71%
URE 0.10% 13.43% -1.61% NaN 0 4 7 59.09% 3.78% 22.28% 95.44%