This Week's ETF Winners & Losers
Exchange-traded funds tracking the financial sector were among the biggest winners this week, propelled by the
Federal Reserve's
decision to cut its overnight lending rate by another quarter-point to 2%.
The
Ultra Financials ProShares
(UYG) - Get Report
had a particularly good week, surging 5.2% since Monday.
At the same time, the
Financial Select Sector SPDR
(XLF) - Get Report
, the
Vanguard Financials ETF
(VFH) - Get Report
, the
iShares Dow Jones U.S. Financial Sector
(IYF) - Get Report
fund and the
iShares S&P Global Financials
(IXG) - Get Report
ETF each added 2.3% or more.
The central bank provided further cushion to financials Friday when it ratcheted up its term auction facility by 50% to $150 billion, meaning banks will have that much more money available for borrowing.
Since Monday, two of the Dow's financial components --
Bank of America
(BAC) - Get Report
and
JPMorgan Chase
(JPM) - Get Report
-- added 3.9% and 1.8%, respectively, though
Citigroup
(C) - Get Report
ticked 0.8% lower, weighed down by this week's news that it would offer $4.5 billion in stock.
Suffering the flip-side of the Fed's decision were commodities-related ETFs. Among the worst-performing energy ETFs were
Oil Services HOLDRs
(OIH) - Get Report
,
PowerShares Dynamic Oil & Gas Services
(PXJ) - Get Report
,
United States Oil
(USO) - Get Report
and
iShares Dow Jones U.S. Energy
(IYE) - Get Report
. All have sunk at least 2.1% apiece over the past five sessions.
Those declines came despite climbs at
Chevron
(CVX) - Get Report
and
BP
(BP) - Get Report
, which both reported higher profits this week on the back of the oil boom, and for the week were up 2.8% and 4.4%, respectively.
Exxon Mobil
(XOM) - Get Report
was a notable exception, sliding 3.1% since Monday after failing to hit analyst estimates for the first quarter, despite a surging bottom line.
As for gold, the
Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF
(GDX) - Get Report
slid 4.7% for the week, while the
iShares COMEX Gold Trust
(IAU) - Get Report
and the
streetTRACKS Gold Shares
(GLD) - Get Report
fund each dropped 3.1%.