News
To help investors keep up with the markets, we present our ETF Scorecard. The Scorecard takes a step back and looks at how various asset classes across the globe are performing. The weekly performance is from last Friday’s open to this week’s Thursday close.
- U.S. markets ended in the green for the week.
- All major foreign markets, including developed and emerging markets, are up for the week.
- The Core Retail Sales report released last Friday a worse-than-expected growth of 0.2% m/m vs. the consensus of 0.4%.
- The FOMC Meeting Minutes hawkish tone on Wednesday moved the market higher. This lowered investors’ uncertainty of whether a rate hike will occur, and gave them peace of mind that rates probably will rise in December as anticipated.
- The leading indicator, Philly Fed Manufacturing Index was reported better than expected yesterday (Thursday) at 1.9 vs. the consensus of 0.1. This is a great sign for the U.S. economy since a reading above 0.0 means general business conditions are improving.
- On the foreign side, notable news is that Japan has fallen into recession again.
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Risk Appetite Review
- U.S. equity markets have reversed this week, with all the major S&P 500 ETFs in the green.
- The overall market as measured by the S&P 500 ETF (SPY ) was up by 2.06%.
- The high-beta (SPHB ) and low volatility (SPLV ) ETFs are in the lead, with both up 2.68% for the week.
- The equal-weight ETF (RSP ) was the worst performer out of the bunch, with a 2.03% gain for the week.
Major Index Review
- All major global indexes were up this week.
- The Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ ) is the best performer for the week and rolling month, with a 3.27% and 4.76% gain, respectively.
- The Russell 2000 ETF (IWM ) is the worst performer for the week, with only a 1.42% gain.
- The outlier out of the group is the Emerging Markets ETF (EEM ) since it’s the only ETF down at a 2.85% loss for the rolling month.
Foreign Equity Review
- All major foreign equities are up for the week.
- This time around, the Russian ETF (RSX ) is the best performer for the week, with an 8.18% gain.
- The Brazilian ETF (EWZ ) is the best performer for the rolling month, with a gain of 6.30%.
- The Japanese ETF (EWJ ) is the worst performer for the week, with a 1.21% gain. This is mainly because of Japan again falling into recession.
- The Indian ETF (EPI ) remains the worst performer for the rolling month, with a 6.10% loss.
Commodities Review
- Commodities still are in the red for the week, except Gold (GLD ) and Silver (SLV ) with slight gains.
- All commodities are down for the rolling month. This still is due to low inflation numbers and overall low global demand for commodities.
- Copper (JJC ) is the worst performer for the week, with a loss of 4.58%.
- For the rolling month, Natural Gas (UNG ) continues to be the worst performer, with a huge loss of 17.24%.
Currency Review
- The U.S. dollar (UUP ) is down slightly for the week, with a 0.04% loss. Although, it is still the best performer for the rolling month, with a 4.42% gain.
- The best performer for the week is the Australian Dollar (FXA ) which gained 1.01%.
- The Japanese Yen (FXY ) is the worst performing currency for the week, with a loss of 0.09%.
- Most notably, the Euro (FXE ) is down the most for the rolling month at a loss of 5.62%.
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Disclosure: No positions at time of writing.
