Don Dion's Weekly ETF Blog Wrap

Don Dion posts his current insights on the stock, bond, commodity and currency markets in his RealMoney blog , anticipating which ETFs will be in play next. This week, among his blogs featured below, he wrote about developments in Human Genome, Ford and Treasury bonds.

How Human Genome Moved the ETFs

Posted 7/20/2009 5:20 p.m. EDT

Human Genome Sciences(HGSI) delivered surprise news when it announced that its lupus drug achieved statistically significant success in a clinical trial; its stock more than tripled, up 270%.

The SPDR S&P Biotech(XBI) doesn't hold any shares of HGSI, and it had a return of just over 1%. At 0.16% of assets, HGSI didn't make much of a dent in iShares Nasdaq Biotech(IBB), which also had a 1% rally.

PowerShares Dynamic Biotechnology & Genome(PBE), however, had 3.43% of assets in HGSI at the start of the day, enough to fuel a 10% rally in shares of PBE. Finally, First Trust NYSE Arca Biotechnology Index(FBT) spreads its assets evenly across 20 biotech stocks, among them HGSI. The more than tripling of HGSI delivered most of FBT's 15% return on the day.

Besides biotech funds with large exposure to HGSI, Market Vectors Russia(RSX) and Market Vectors Indonesia(IDX) were winners, up more than 6% and 4%, respectively.

Currencies ended up being strong plays as well, as I mentioned this morning. PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Bearish(UDN) gained 0.7% on the day, about where it started. CurrencyShares Australian Dollar(FXA) climbed to a 1.9% return, while thinly traded WisdomTree Dreyfus New Zealand Dollar(BNZ) added 2.5%.

WisdomTree Dreyfus Brazilian Real(BZF) advanced 1.6%, and WisdomTree Dreyfus Emerging Currency(CEW), which holds 12 emerging-market currencies, including the Brazilian real, Indian rupee, Chinese yuan, South Korean won, Polish zloty and Taiwanese dollar, gained 1%.