Winners & Losers

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This Week's ETF Winners & Losers

Sarina Penn

Exchange-traded funds tracking the financial sector were among the biggest winners this week, propelled by the Federal Reserve's decision to cut its overnight lending rate by another quarter-point to 2%.

The Ultra Financials ProShares (UYG Quote - Cramer on UYG - Stock Picks) had a particularly good week, surging 5.2% since Monday.

At the same time, the Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF Quote - Cramer on XLF - Stock Picks), the Vanguard Financials ETF (VFH Quote - Cramer on VFH - Stock Picks), the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Financial Sector (IYF Quote - Cramer on IYF - Stock Picks) fund and the iShares S&P Global Financials (IXG Quote - Cramer on IXG - Stock Picks) ETF each added 2.3% or more.

The central bank provided further cushion to financials Friday when it ratcheted up its term auction facility by 50% to $150 billion, meaning banks will have that much more money available for borrowing.

Since Monday, two of the Dow's financial components -- Bank of America (BAC Quote - Cramer on BAC - Stock Picks) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote - Cramer on JPM - Stock Picks) -- added 3.9% and 1.8%, respectively, though Citigroup (C Quote - Cramer on C - Stock Picks) ticked 0.8% lower, weighed down by this week's news that it would offer $4.5 billion in stock.

Suffering the flip-side of the Fed's decision were commodities-related ETFs. Among the worst-performing energy ETFs were Oil Services HOLDRs (OIH Quote - Cramer on OIH - Stock Picks), PowerShares Dynamic Oil & Gas Services (PXJ Quote - Cramer on PXJ - Stock Picks), United States Oil (USO Quote - Cramer on USO - Stock Picks) and iShares Dow Jones U.S. Energy (IYE Quote - Cramer on IYE - Stock Picks). All have sunk at least 2.1% apiece over the past five sessions.

Those declines came despite climbs at Chevron (CVX Quote - Cramer on CVX - Stock Picks) and BP (BP Quote - Cramer on BP - Stock Picks), which both reported higher profits this week on the back of the oil boom, and for the week were up 2.8% and 4.4%, respectively.

Exxon Mobil (XOM Quote - Cramer on XOM - Stock Picks) was a notable exception, sliding 3.1% since Monday after failing to hit analyst estimates for the first quarter, despite a surging bottom line.

As for gold, the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX Quote - Cramer on GDX - Stock Picks) slid 4.7% for the week, while the iShares COMEX Gold Trust (IAU Quote - Cramer on IAU - Stock Picks) and the streetTRACKS Gold Shares (GLD Quote - Cramer on GLD - Stock Picks) fund each dropped 3.1%.