ETF Scorecard – March 13th Edition

Major equity indexes continued to trend lower this week following the upbeat February employment report from the prior week in light of heightened rate hike fears. On the data release front, investors digested a slightly better-than-expected small business index reading along with negative retail sales that barely beat expectations. Overseas, European equities kicked off the week on shaky footing but have since regained their balance in light of the ECB’s stimulus program which began on Monday.

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Profit taking pressures have dominated Wall Street over the past week as evidenced by negative returns across the board, with High Beta securities getting hit the hardest from this group:

Major equity indexes around the globe are now all negative, or close to it, from a monthly returns perspective with the exception of U.S. small caps, which are leading the way higher by a wide margin:

The Energy sector is back to being the worst performer across all time frames, while the Discretionary and Health Care sectors have proven to be the most resilient from a monthly perspective:

Brazil and Russia are the worst performers across all time frames while Japanese equities have proven to be the most resilient ones from this group:

As a whole, commodities have been very poor performers over the past month with copper prices turning in the biggest gains:

The U.S. dollar posted the best returns for a second week in a row and it also remains the biggest winner by far from a monthly perspective:

Please note that data is updated as of market close March 12th.

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Disclosure: No positions at time of writing.