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 are in the red for the week.
- Most major foreign markets, including developed and emerging markets, are down for the week.
- Janet Yellen testified about monetary policy this Thursday. The tone was hawkish, as she feels the U.S. economy is ready for a rate hike.
- The leading economic indicator, ISM Manufacturing PMI, had a disappointing figure of 48.6 vs. the consensus of 50.6 on Tuesday’s release.
- ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI released on Thursday this week also fell short of expectations. The reading stood at 55.9 vs. the consensus of 58.1.
- The IMF approved China’s renminbi as a global reserve currency this week. We wrote about the potential effects this will have on the Chinese economy and how to get exposure here.
- Mario Draghi, the chief of the ECB, announced the extension of the 60-billion-euro-a-month bond-buying program until March 2017 instead of September 2016, but the ECB did not increase the amounts of these purchases. The markets did not take this well.
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Risk Appetite Review
- The overall market as measured by the S&P 500 ETF (SPY ) was slightly down at a 0.43% decrease.
- The equal weight ETF (RSP ) was the worst performer out of the bunch, with a 0.52% loss for the week.
- The high-beta ETF (SPHB ) is down the least, with a decline of 0.35% for the week.
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Major Index Review
- All major indexes are down for the week, except the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ ), which is up a modest 0.05%.
- The Emerging Markets ETF (EEM ) is the worst performer for the week and the rolling month, with a 1.17% and 4.57% loss, respectively.
- The Russell 2000 ETF (IWM ) is the best performer for the rolling month, with a 0.86% gain.
Foreign Equity Review
- All major foreign tracking ETFs are down for the week, except the Chinese ETF (FXI ), which is up 0.84%.
- The only ETF that is in the green for the rolling month is the Japanese ETF (EWJ ), with a gain of 0.73%.
- The Russian ETF (RSX ) is the worst performer for the week and rolling month, with a 5.20% and 6.68% loss, respectively.
Commodities Review
- All commodities are down for the week and rolling month, with the exception being silver (SLV ), which had no change for the week.
- Oil (USO ) is the worst performer for the week and rolling month, with a loss of 4.66% and 17.02%, respectively.
- The agriculture ETF (DBA ) is the one that decreased the least for the rolling month, with a loss of 2.88%.
Currency Review
- The U.S. dollar (UUP ) is down slightly for the week, with a loss of 0.19%. Although, it still is the top performer for the rolling month, with a gain of 2.72%.
- The Australian dollar (DBA ) is the best performer for the week, with a gain of 1.52%.
- The worst performer for the rolling month is the euro (FXE ), which is down 3.23%. However, it did gain 0.34% this week because of the ECB announcement discussed earlier.
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Disclosure: No positions at time of writing.
