Dion's Thursday ETF Winners and Losers
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -Welcome to Don Dion's Daily ETF Winners and Losers. Be sure to stop by each day to get a feel of who's winning and who's losing when it comes to ETFs.
Winners
iPath Dow Jones UBS Sugar Total Return Subindex ETN
(SGG)
7.5%
Since coming off a strong multi-month rally, agricultural commodities have run into some rocky performance, leading single crop ETFs such as SGG to take a few heavy hits. However on Thursday, products including SGG,
PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund
(DBA)
and
iPath Dow Jones UBS Grains Total Return Subindex ETN
(JJG)
are treading higher along with the rest of the market.
Global X Copper Miners ETF
(COPX)
4.4%
Sweeping market optimism is boding well for both copper miners and the general base metal industry. The futures-based
PowerShares DB Base Metal ETF
TheStreet Recommends
(DBB)
is another fund from this industry which is powering higher today, putting an end to a four day stretch of declines.
Precious metals are also gaining, lifting miner products such as
Global X Silver Miners ETF
(SIL)
and physically backed funds such as
ETFS Physical Palladium Shares
(PALL)
.
Market Vectors Coal ETF
(KOL)
3.4%
A combination of strong market action and reports of
Walter Energy
's
(WLT)
$3 billion bid for Western Coal is boding well for the coal ETF. Both Walter and Western can be found among KOL's index. Together, the two companies represent 6% of its total portfolio.
While coal is leading the way among energy ETFs, alternative energy-focused products are ramping higher as well.
Guggenheim Solar Energy ETF
(TAN)
is up 2.1% and
Market Vectors Nuclear Energy ETF
(NLR)
is jumping 3.2%
Guggenheim China Small Cap ETF
(HAO)
2.8%
The ETF aimed at tracking China's small cap market has managed to recover its lost ground after seeing some of yesterday's biggest losses. Other ETFs designed to track various regions of Asia are gaining ground today, shaking off some of the past few sessions' losses.
iShares MSCI Thailand Investable Market Index Fund
(THD)
and
iShares MSCI South Korea Index Fund
(EWY)
are among those seeing the biggest lifts.
Losers
iPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures ETN
(VXX)
-5.7%
Both VXX and the
iPath S&P 500 VIX Mid Term Futures ETN
(VXZ)
have recovered slightly in November as investors are reminded of the economic turmoil facing regions including China and the E.U.
On Thursday, however, optimistic took over, taking a toll on these fear-based funds. While VXX took the biggest hit, VXZ suffered as well, tumbling over 3%.
All prices as of 2:15 PM EST
Written by Don Dion in Williamstown, Mass.
At the time of publication, Dion Money Management owned iShares MSCI Thailand Investable Market Index Fund and PowerShares DB Agriculture 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.
