Four Materials ETFs Set for a Strong Second Half

The materials sector has been one of the S&P's leaders so far in 2016 with returns trailing only utilities and energy. Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF & mutual fund research at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said there are a number of worthwhile materials ETFs for investors looking to jump in mid-year. Rosenbluth highlighted the Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLB) - Get Report , up 10% year-to-date, as a good place to start. The XLB is the largest of the diversified materials sector ETFs, with $2.7 billion in assets. The XLB tracks the S&P 500 constituents and is market-cap weighted with Dow Chemical (DOW) - Get Report and DuPont (DD) - Get Report combining for 23% of assets, followed by a 9% stake in Monsanto (MON)  .Another materials sector ETF favored by Rosenbluth is the Fidelity MSCI Materials fund (FMAT) - Get Report . Though the FMAT is much smaller in size and trades with a wider bid/ask spread, FMAT has a lower expense ratio.