Dion's Wednesday ETF Winners and Losers
NEW YORK (
) -- Welcome to Don Dion's Daily ETF Winners and Losers. Be sure to stop by each day to get a feel of whose winning and who's losing when it comes to ETFs.
Winners
iShares MSCI Singapore Index Fund
(EWS) - Get Report
4%
The Singapore ETF is jumping today thanks to an impressive GDP report. In the first quarter of 2010, the nation saw its economy grow an adjusted 32%, the largest quarterly jump in over 30 years. Following the strong report, the nation's Monetary Authority tightened policy.
SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF
(XSD) - Get Report
3.4%
Tech and semiconductor ETFs are rallying after
Intel
(INTC) - Get Report
reported strong first quarter earnings and an optimistic outlook for the industry. Intel is the eleventh largest holding of XSD, one of today's leaders, accounting for 4% of the fund's total index.
Based on the chip sector's strong start in the earnings season, investors should keep an eye on XSD and other semiconductor ETFs in the near future.
ETFS Physical Palladium Shares
(PALL) - Get Report
3.3%
Palladium's recent rally has been impressive. On Wednesday, the price of the white metal hit a new two-year high. Today's gains can be attributed to strength in Asia as well as a comment from Anglo Platinum that there could be a long-term deficit in the market.
SPDR KBW Bank ETF
(KBE) - Get Report
2.6%
KBE, a financial ETF hybrid, provides investors with exposure to both Wall Street giants and smaller regional banks. Though the regionals were weighed down yesterday by a UBS downgrade,
JPMorgan
(JPM) - Get Report
's blockbuster earnings report has managed to keep this fund strong today.
Investors should keep an eye on KBE heading into Friday when top holding
Bank of America
(BAC) - Get Report
is scheduled to report its own quarterly earnings. After BAC, regional banks such as
US Bancorp
(USB) - Get Report
and
Fifth Third Bancorp
(FITB) - Get Report
come up to bat.
Losers
iPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures ETN
(VXX) - Get Report
-2.7%
With markets showing continued resilience and companies following through with strong earnings reports, fear is falling by the wayside, causing VXX to take a hit. This fund has been on a near uninterrupted downward slide since it started trading at the start of 2009. I continue to advise investors to steer clear of fear.
iShares Dow Jones U.S. Health Care Providers Index Fund
(IHF) - Get Report
-1.3%
Healthcare providers have proved to be market laggards today with IHF turning out some of the biggest losses. Leading IHF's downward slide is
UnitedHealth Group
(UNH) - Get Report
which has fallen over 3%.
Medco Health Solutions
(MHS)
,
Wellpoint
(WLP)
, and
Cigna
(WLP)
were down over 2% each during early afternoon trading.
All prices as of 2:12 p.m. EST
-- Written by Don Dion in Williamstown, Mass.
At the time of publication, Dion was long iShares Dow Jones U.S. Health Care Providers Index Fund.
Don Dion is president and founder of
, 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.
