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. We are releasing it early this week because tomorrow is New Year’s Day. The weekly performance is from last Friday’s open to this week’s Wednesday close.
- U.S. markets are up for the week, but down this morning.
- Most major foreign markets, especially emerging markets, are down for the week.
- On Tuesday this week, the Conference Board (CB) released the consumer confidence figure of 96.5, which surpassed analysts’ expectations of 93.5. This also is an improvement from last month’s reading of 90.4, which suggests consumers are more confident about spending this month compared to the previous month.
- Unemployment claims released today were worse than expected at 287,000 vs. the consensus of 270,000. This is a figure not seen since July of this year.
- The Chicago PMI figure released this morning is worse than expected at 42.9 vs. the consensus of 50. This is a major reason why the markets are trending down today.
- One thing to keep in mind going forward into the new year is the January effect, which suggests the market tends to have an upward bias in the month of January. Read more about it here.
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Risk Appetite Review
- The overall market as measured by the S&P 500 ETF (SPY ) was up this week at a 0.52% increase. However, it is in the red this morning.
- The low volatility ETF (SPLV ) was the best performer this week, with a 0.80% gain for the week.
- The high-beta ETF (SPHB ) was the worst performer, with a decrease of 0.61% for the week.
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Major Index Review
- Most major indexes are in the green for the week. The only exception is the Emerging Markets ETF (EEM ), which is down 1.37% this week.
- All major indexes are down for the rolling month, with the Russell 2000 ETF (EEM ) being the worst performer at a 4.98% loss.
- The Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ ) lost the least value for the rolling month, with a loss of only 1.16%.
Foreign Equity Review
- All major foreign tracking ETFs are down for the week, except the Japanese (EWJ ) and UK (EWU ) ETFs, which are up 0.82% and 0.06%, respectively. Although, both of these are down slightly this morning.
- All major foreign markets are down for the rolling month, with the Russian ETF (RSX ) being the worst performer at a loss of 14.09%.
- The Indian ETF (EPI ) only decreased 0.20% for the rolling month, which makes it the best performer with the smallest loss.
Commodities Review
- Commodity performance is mixed for the rolling month and week. It seems we might be seeing reversals for some commodities.
- Gold (GLD ), silver (SLV ) and oil (USO ) are down, while copper (JJC ), natural gas (UNG ) and agriculture (DBA ) are up for the week.
- Natural gas (UNG ) is up the most for the week, with a gain of 4.22%. Silver (SLV ) is the worst performer for the week, with a 1.27% loss.
- Oil (USO ) is a huge outlier for the rolling month, with a loss of 17.07%. As mentioned in the previous Scorecards, demand growth for oil is expected to slow down while supply is expected to persist.
Currency Review
- The U.S. dollar (UUP ) is up for the week, with a gain of 0.31%. However, it is the worst performer for the rolling month, with a loss of 2.15%.
- The Australian dollar (FXA ) is the best performer for the week, with a gain of 0.36%.
- The worst performer for the week is the emerging market currency ETF (CEW ), which is down 0.59%.
- The euro (FXE ) is the best performer for the rolling month, with a gain of 3.26%. This is because of the ECB announcement earlier this month about the QE extension program.
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Disclosure: No positions at time of writing.
