Dion’s Tuesday ETF Winners and Losers
Welcome to Don Dion’s Daily ETF Winners and Losers. Be sure to stop by each day to get a feel of who’s winning and who’s losing when it comes to ETFs.
Winners
SPDR S&P Metals & Mining ETF(XME) 3.6%
Base metals, steel and coal are all heading higher today, propelling XME, Market Vectors Steel ETF(SLX), Market Vectors Coal ETF(KOL) and iPath Dow Jones-UBS Copper Total Return Subindex ETN(JJC) to top spots among Tuesday’s ETF winners.
Helping lead these funds higher today is news that the Chinese government may be taking steps to relax its economic tightening measures.
Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF(GDXJ) 2.4%
After yesterday’s heavy sell off, gold miners of all sizes are staging a reversal, recovering the day’s losses. Silver producers are also seeing strength.
iShares MSCI Brazil Index Fund(EWZ) 3%
The Brazil ETF is seeing a nice bounce off of its 50-day moving average. Top holding Vale is one of the country’s biggest gainers, jumping nearly 5% in late morning trading. Energy giant Petrobras(PBR) was also heading higher on Tuesday, gaining over 3%.
With debt issues continuing to threaten Europe and concerns lingering regarding China’s economic growth picture, Latin America has remained a relatively stable region of the globe.
Losers
iShares Dow Jones U.S. Regional Banks Index Fund(IAT) -1.2%
The regional banks represented by IAT are getting knocked today with Fifth Third(FITB) and SunTrust(STI) taking two of the biggest hits.
I continue to stand by regional banks as the better financial-focused option to play Wall Street reform but would rather stick to a fund like SPDR KBW Regional Banking ETF(KRE), which was down less than 1% today.
KRE avoids the largest representatives of the regional banking industry like US Bancorp(USB), which may still feel heat from Washington lawmakers.
SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF(XSD) -0.7%
The tech sector is slumping today after a less-than- optimistic revenue report from IBM. Leading the industry lower is the semiconductors, represented by XSD.
Texas Instruments(TXN), another big earnings driven decliner on Tuesday, is a large holding in XSD, making up over 4% of the fund’s total portfolio.
iShares MSCI Italy Index Fund(EWQ) -0.7%
Italy-focused EWI is seeing one of the biggest dips among the single nation Europe ETFs today. Other strugglers include iShares MSCI Netherlands Investable Market Index Fund(EWN), iShares MSCI Germany Index Fund(EWG) and iShares MSCI France Index Fund(EWQ).
Going forward, Europe remains a source of instability. Be cautious before testing these waters.
