Dion's Weekly ETF Winners and Losers

It was a wild week on Wall Street that left the S&P 500 trading at almost the exact same level on Sept. 3 as it traded on Aug. 3. It was fitting that this was a week of churning itself. The S&P 500 closed at 1028 on Aug. 28 and finished at 1016 this Friday, having recovered from a low of 995 on Wednesday.

Few sectors showed clear direction, save for gold. The metal surged toward the $1,000 level after it spent six months mostly trading between $900 and $950. With that in mind, here are the winners and losers for the week:

Winners

Market Vectors Gold Miners(GDX Quote) +12.1%

iShares Silver Trust(SLV Quote) +10.2%

Gold miners tend to be leveraged to the price of gold, as long as general inflation doesn't lift expenses along with the price of gold. With low inflation, every increase in gold prices can theoretically drop to the bottom line of the gold miners, and investors bid up the shares accordingly.

Silver tends to be more volatile than gold, and this week was no exception. iShares Comex Gold(IAU Quote) gained less than half of the move in silver. Bulls point out that silver is undervalued judging by the historic ratio between the metals. Silver didn't follow gold last year because it sold off with other industrial metals.

If the trend from last week continues, expect silver to continue outperforming the barbarous relic.

ProShares Ultra Short Real Estate (SRS Quote) +10.6%

Due to the mild mannered market this week, many leveraged funds dominated the performance table. The sharp drop on Tuesday led to big one-day gains that were not lost in the subsequent small rebounds. Real estate shares were among the best performers in the past few weeks, and it's no surprise to see them drop sharply in a selloff.