Don Dion's Weekly ETF Winners and Losers

It was a down week for the index after Friday's energy and transportation led a decline. Disappointing earnings from railroads spooked the market, despite Amazon's(AMZN Quote) impressive earnings. The S&P 500 Index finished the week with a 0.7% loss.

Dick Bove caused a bit of a stir Wednesday after he made positive comments on Wells Fargo(WFC Quote) in the morning, only to reverse them in the afternoon, sending WFC down more than 5% on the day and triggering a market-wide sell-off. Still, when the dust was settled, the gains in the winners outstripped the losses in the losers.

Winners

Claymore/AlphaShares China Real Estate(TAO Quote) +6.0%

There were some reasons to think Chinese real estate firms would underperform, given a string of less than stellar IPOs, but a successful IPO of China Real Estate Information (CRIC Quote) on Friday and the 7% increase in the offering size of the pending Hong Kong IPO of Evergrande, a Chinese developer, suggests that some demand has come back into the market.

PowerShares DB Base Metals(DBB Quote) +7.7%

iPath Copper Total Return ETN(JJC Quote) +6.5%

Industrial metals picked up thanks to positive economic data. Dr. Copper is said to have the best forecasting ability of any economist, and he's grown more bullish in October, after turning a bit bearish in September.

iPath Grains Total Return (JJG Quote) +7.0%

PowerShares DB Agriculture(DBA Quote) +1.7%

Last week, DBA was a winner for the week as short-covering lifted grains, but this week JJG was the winner, with DBA's mild gain unimpressive and included only for comparison. JJG has nearly half the portfolio in soybeans, almost one-third in corn, and less than one-quarter in wheat. Corn and soybeans spiked this week and the more concentrated JJG benefited.