ETFs for When the Dollar Slides

By Gary Gordon of etfexpert.com

As I look at the price of crude oil at $80-plus per barrel, I admit I'm impressed. After all, the dollar gained about 10% in four months, and this dollar-priced commodity managed to hang tough.

Yet ever since Thursday's late announcement regarding an EU-IMF solution for Greece, the dollar has lost some of its mojo. In two sessions, Friday's and Monday's, the Powershares DB Dollar Bullish Fund(UUP) dropped 1.2%.

The last thing anyone should do is make a big deal about low-volume trading in a holiday-shortened week. In fact, we shouldn't draw any big conclusions about trading at the end of a quarter before earnings season and before the release of the jobs report.

Nevertheless, I can't help but marvel at oil's ability to hold near $80 per barrel and gold's ability to hold near $1100 per ounce even as the dollar had been climbing higher and higher. It made me wonder what will happen when "dollar devaluation" returns?

Perhaps the easiest way to answer that question is to look at what some of the top exchange-traded funds did Monday. How much did they gain? Are their respective correlations with the dollar weak so that a respective investment would do well when the dollar is falling?

I will be the first to admit that a one-day boost in the "commodity complex" does not make for a clear uptrend. Nor does a two-day decline in PowerShares DB Dollar Bullish Fund mean the imminent decline of the recently mighty buck.