The Best and Worst Funds for the Week

TSC Ratings provides exclusive stock, ETF and mutual fund ratings and commentary based on award-winning, proprietary tools. Its "safety first" approach to investing aims to reduce risk while seeking solid outperformance on a total return basis.

Utility funds that bubbled to the top of the performance list this week focus on companies that provide infrastructure to cities around the world. The deepest well of support came from PowerShares Global Water Portfolio (PIO - commentary - Trade Now), up 4.5% for the five trading days ending Thursday, May 21.

Itron (ITRI - commentary - Trade Now), one of the fund's holdings, spiked 22% after Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Unsworth met with Energy Secretary Sten Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to discuss standards for smart-grid electric meters. Simply put, Itron is North America's leader in advanced meters for electric, gas and water, and made sure its meters qualified under standards set for available stimulus-fund projects of the Department of Energy.

Another U.S. holding, Valmont Industries (VMI - commentary - Trade Now), gained 4.9%. The company fabricates steel pipe irrigation systems for farming as well as poles and towers, which will be required in any rebuilding of the electric-grid infrastructure. Lower commodities prices would expand the company's profit margins.

The PowerShares Global Water Portfolio is sufficiently liquid, averaging a trading volume of nearly 100,000 shares a day over the past six months. However, the SPDR S&P International Utilities Sector ETF (IPU - commentary - Trade Now), which began trading 10 months ago, is highly illiquid, averaging just 1,600 shares traded daily.

The SPDR S&P International Utilities Sector ETF gained 3.6% this week on standout performances of 15% from Acciona SA, 11% in Fortum Oyj and 8.1% in A2A Spa.

Best-Performing Utility Funds for the Week Ending Thursday Fund Ticker Rating Fund Type 1 Week Total Return ProShares UltraShort Utilities SDP C+ ETF 5.22% PowerShares Global Water Portfolio PIO D- ETF 4.49% SPDR S&P International Utilities Sector ETF IPU U ETF 3.55% Claymore S&P Global Water Index ETF/USA CGW D- ETF 3.49% Evergreen Utilities and High Income Fund ERH C Closed-End 3.42% Kinetics Water Infrastructure Fund KWIAX U Open-End 3.34% PowerShares Water Resources Portfolio PHO C- ETF 2.97% Morgan Stanley Global Infrastructure Fund UTLAX D+ Open-End 2.93% iShares S&P Global Infrastructure Index Fund IGF E+ ETF 2.81% Allianz RCM Global Water Fund AWTAX U Open-End 2.78% Source: Bloomberg & TheStreet.com Ratings

While the 200% leveraged ProShares UltraShort Utilities (SDP - commentary - Trade Now), which bets on a decline in share prices, returned 5.2% to top the list of best-performing utility funds, the two "long" leveraged funds tracking the same Dow Jones U.S. Utilities Index sank the most this week.

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Kevin Baker became the senior financial analyst for TSC Ratings upon the August 2006 acquisition of Weiss Ratings by TheStreet.com, covering mutual funds. He joined the Weiss Group in 1997 as a banking and brokerage analyst. In 1999, he created the Weiss Group's first ratings to gauge the level of risk in U.S. equities. Baker received a B.S. degree in management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an M.B.A. with a finance specialization from Nova Southeastern University.