This Week's ETF Winners & Losers
Housing-related exchange-traded funds were the best performers of week, after unexpectedly strong new-home sales data hinted that the sector may be close to bottoming.
Shortly after Thursday's session began, a Commerce Department report said that new-home sales rose 16.2% last month to an annual rate of 981,000 units. Economists were looking for only an 860,000 pace.
Housing ETFs managed to avoid pitfalls during the week, including Friday's weak report on existing-home sales, as well as a disappointing fiscal second-quarter earnings report from
Toll Brothers
(TOL) - Get Report
on Thursday.
For the week, the
iShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction
(ITB) - Get Report
ETF added 3.2% to finish at $37.33. The
SPDR Homebuilders
(XHB) - Get Report
ETF rose 2.6% to $35.52.
Bundled securities tracking the Internet sector also had a strong week. The sector was led higher by an 8.3% gain in
Amazon.com
(AMZN) - Get Report
. Elsewhere,
EarthLink
(ELNK)
tacked on 4%,
BEA Systems
(BEAS)
was higher by 3%, and
(GOOG) - Get Report
was up 2.8%.
The
First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index
(FDN) - Get Report
was the best performer of the Internet ETFs, finishing up 1.3% at $25.61. The
Internet Infrastructure HOLDRs
(IIH)
added 1% to $5.16, and the
Internet HOLDRs
(HHH)
climbed 0.9% to $61.31.
On the losing side, bundled securities tracking chipmakers were the worst performers of the week. Following Tuesday's close,
Analog Devices
(ADI) - Get Report
provided third-quarter guidance that fell short of expectations. JPMorgan also downgraded the stock to neutral from overweight. Analog Devices slumped 11.2% over the five sessions.
Among other chipmakers,
Advanced Micro Devices
(AMD) - Get Report
shed 5.3% for the week,
Xilinx
(XLNX) - Get Report
lost 4.9%,
Texas Instruments
(TXN) - Get Report
fell 2.7%, and
Intel
(INTC) - Get Report
eased 2.4%
The
Ultra Semiconductor ProShares
(USD) - Get Report
ETF fell 4.7% to $76.35. The
Semiconductor HOLDRs
(SMH) - Get Report
ETF was lower by 2.4% to $36.26. The
iShares Goldman Sachs Semiconductor
(IGW)
ETF was down 2.1% to $63.56. The
PowerShares Dynamic Semiconductors
(PSI) - Get Report
ETF eased 1.2% to $18.86.
Utility-related ETFs were also among the biggest losers. Among individual names,
Exelon
(EXC) - Get Report
slid 6.6% for the week,
Duke Energy
(DUK) - Get Report
eased 5.9%, and both
FPL Group
(FPL) - Get Report
and
American Electric Power
(AEP) - Get Report
were lower by 3.8%.
The
Ultra Utilities ProShares
(UPW) - Get Report
shed 8.5% to $86.40. The
Vanguard Utilities ETF
(VPU) - Get Report
lost 3.9% to $85.78, and the
Utility HOLDRs
(UTH)
fell 3.8% to $145.88.
