Thursday's ETF Winners & Losers

A downgrade of Wal-Mart(WMT Quote) at Merrill Lynch and worries about consumer spending in the wake of higher oil prices sent exchange-traded funds that follow the retail sector lower Thursday.

Shares in the Retail HOLDRs Trust(RTH Quote) fell 75 cents to $90.30. The Consumer Discretionary SPDR(XLY Quote) ETF slipped 32 cents to $32.07. The PowerShares Dynamic Retail(PMR Quote) ETF fell 9 cents to $16.57.

The ETF tracking the price of oil, the U.S. Oil Fund(OIH Quote), jumped 2.5% as oil prices hit a record. Light, sweet crude for August delivery recently was up $1.45 to $76.30 a barrel in the wake of more turmoil in the Middle East. The oil ETF was trading higher by $1.75 to $72.89.

Meanwhile, the higher oil prices sent down the price of several transportation-related stocks. The iShares Dow Jones Transportation Average(IYT Quote) was one of the biggest ETF losers, trading down $1.86, or 2%, to $84.34.

Shares of the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology(IBB Quote) ETF were recently shedding about 2% of their value, following the lead of its top 10 holdings. The fund's biggest holding, Amgen(AMGN Quote), was trading down 40 cents to $65.82, while Gilead Sciences(GILD Quote) slipped 76 cents to $61.03. One of the few bright spots in the fund was Genzyme(GENZ Quote), which was trading up 31 cents to $63.05. The biotech ETF was recently trading down $1.12 to $70.34.

One of the few ETF winners on the day was the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Utilities(IDU Quote), which was recently trading up 18 cents to $80.21. The fund was led higher by Duke Energy(DUK Quote), which rose 46 cents, or 2%, to $29.68 and Exelon(EXC Quote), which was up 50 cents to $58.20.