This Week's ETF Winners & Losers
A number of exchange-traded funds gained ground for the week, and those tracking energy and oil ranked among the best performers.
The
Oil Service HOLDRs
(OIH) - Get Report
rose 3.9% over the past five days, and the
PowerShares Dynamic Oil & Gas Services
(PXJ) - Get Report
fund tacked on 4%. The
iShares Dow Jones U.S. Energy Sector
(IYE) - Get Report
and
Ultra Oil & Gas ProShares
(DIG) - Get Report
spiked 4.3% and 7.9%, respectively.
While crude oil saw erratic day-to-day movements, repeatedly hitting new record highs before succumbing to profit-taking, in the end it reaped gains for the week, ending at $126.29 a barrel.
Among energy stocks,
Exxon Mobil
(XOM) - Get Report
,
Chevron
(CVX) - Get Report
and
ConocoPhillips
(COP) - Get Report
added 3.1% or more.
Gold also had a good week, as futures on the metal lifted to end the week just shy of $900 an ounce. Since Monday, the
Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF
(GDX) - Get Report
ramped up 3%. The
iShares COMEX Gold Trust
(IAU) - Get Report
and the
streetTRACKS Gold Trust
(GLD) - Get Report
rose roughly 2% apiece.
Various corners of the tech sector were also on the rise amid a series of uplifting news items.
Research in Motion
(RIM)
kicked off the week by releasing its new BlackBerry Bold smartphone product, which is seen as a possible rival to
Apple's
(AAPL) - Get Report
iPhone, and RIM shares ended up 5.3% for the week. Apple climbed 2.3%.
The
Wireless HOLDRS
(WMH)
fund climbed 3.1% over the past five days, and
PowerShares Dynamic Telecom & Wireless
(PTE) - Get Report
moved up 4.7%.
Also, the
Vanguard Information Technology ETF
(VGT) - Get Report
climbed 3.8% during a week in which
Hewlett-Packard
(HPQ) - Get Report
inked a deal to take out
Electronic Data Systems
(EDS)
for $13.9 billion. EDS shares propelled 29% higher for the week. H-P lost 3.8%,
In more merger-related tech news,
CNET
(CNET) - Get Report
agreed to sell itself to
CBS
(CBS) - Get Report
for $1.8 billion. CNET shares have soared nearly 50% since Monday, and CBS surrendered 4%.
Elsewhere, activist investor Carl Icahn built up his position in
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
before moving to replace 10 of the company's directors, saying in a letter that the firm "acted irrationally" in turning down
Microsoft's
(MSFT) - Get Report
sweetened buyout bid.
Yahoo! shares have ballooned 6.7% over the past week. The
Internet HOLDRs
(HHH)
fund jumped 4.7%, and the
Internet Architecture HOLDRs
(IAH)
ratcheted up 2.5%.