NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- This week is light on economic data, but a number of earnings reports are coming out that will have a significant bearing on ETFs in the retail, energy, biotech and commodity sectors.

SPDR S&P Retail (XRT) - Get Report

This retail ETF spreads assets evenly across its holdings and has barely more than 2% of assets in its No. 1 holding. Still, due to the heavy number of retail earnings reports this week, 15% of the fund will be in play. Several retailers not held by the fund are also reporting, and those earnings could affect the sector to the extent that a sector-wide move takes place.

Of the firms reporting,

The Children's Place

(PLCE) - Get Report

has the largest slice of assets in XRT, at 2.1% of assets. Analysts are looking for $1.03 per share on $463 million in revenue.

Market Vectors Nuclear Energy

(NLR) - Get Report

Two uranium miners, accounting for 8.5% of assets, will report earnings this week. Uranium One is scheduled to report on March 10 and

Dennison Mines

(DNN) - Get Report

on Friday.

Last week's decision by the Obama administration to abandon plans for a nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain caused a brief pull back in shares. These miners, though, are more dependent on global growth of nuclear energy, and a good report could help NLR shares climb back towards the high-end of their 10-month range. Shares have gone nowhere during this period, spending most of the time between $22 and $24 per share.

Market Vectors Steel

(SLX) - Get Report

Iron-ore prices may advance 80% this year, based on the latest news coming from the negotiations between the miners and Asian steel mills.

BHP Billiton

(BHP) - Get Report

wants to rely on quarterly spot prices instead of annual contracts, but the miners typically coalesce around similar contract terms. Last week,

Vale

(VALE) - Get Report

signaled that it may be moving in BHP's direction.

A steel ETF may seem like an odd way to play rising raw material prices, but more than 23% of SLX's assets are split between miners

Rio Tinto

( RTP) and Vale. Higher-iron ore prices will not derail the rally in steelmakers and will lift the shares of the miners.

First Trust NYSE Arca Biotechnology

(FBT) - Get Report

Biotech was a poppin' last week. Several holdings in FBT advanced double digits and their sizeable gains helped lift FBT by more than 10%. Year to date, the fund is up more than 20%. A couple of the moves were due to acquisitions and they should hold their gains. It will be interesting to see if the industry consolidates this week or continues its march to higher ground.

Market Vectors: Gold Miners

(GDX) - Get Report

Analysts on average estimate

Goldcorp

(GG)

earned 25 cents a share in revenue in the previous quarter. The firm reports on March 11.

Goldcorp is the second largest holding in GDX, with 12.6% of assets. Fellow top-ten holding

Yamana Gold

(AUY) - Get Report

, with 4.1% of assets, dragged on GDX when it sank more than 5% last week after reporting lower-than-expected earnings.

With three times the weighting of Yamana, any surprise out of Goldcorp will have a much greater impact on this ETF.

GDX peaked in early December and will need to rally more than 15% to recapture that level.

-- Written by Don Dion in Williamstown, Mass.

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At the time of publication, Dion did not hold positions in any of the funds equities mentioned.

Don Dion is president and founder of

Dion Money Management

, a fee-based investment advisory firm to affluent individuals, families and nonprofit organizations, where he is responsible for setting investment policy, creating custom portfolios and overseeing the performance of client accounts. Founded in 1996 and based in Williamstown, Mass., Dion Money Management manages assets for clients in 49 states and 11 countries. Dion is a licensed attorney in Massachusetts and Maine and has more than 25 years' experience working in the financial markets, having founded and run two publicly traded companies before establishing Dion Money Management.

Dion also is publisher of the Fidelity Independent Adviser family of newsletters, which provides to a broad range of investors his commentary on the financial markets, with a specific emphasis on mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. With more than 100,000 subscribers in the U.S. and 29 other countries, Fidelity Independent Adviser publishes six monthly newsletters and three weekly newsletters. Its flagship publication, Fidelity Independent Adviser, has been published monthly for 11 years and reaches 40,000 subscribers.