ETFdb Logo
ETFdb Logo
  • ETF Database
  • Channels
    • Active ETF
    • Alternatives
    • Beyond Basic Beta
    • China Insights
    • Climate Insights
    • Commodities
    • Core Strategies
    • Crypto
    • Disruptive Technology
    • Dividend
    • Dual Impact
    • Emerging Markets
    • Energy Infrastructure
    • ESG
    • ETF Building Blocks
    • ETF Education
    • ETF Strategist
    • Fixed Income
    • Free Cash Flow
    • Future ETFs
    • Global Diversification
    • Gold/Silver/Critical Minerals
    • Innovative ETFs
    • Institutional Income Strategies
    • Leveraged & Inverse
    • Managed Futures
    • Market Insights
    • Megatrends
    • Modern Alpha
    • Multi-Asset
    • Night Effect
    • Portfolio Strategies
    • Retirement Income
    • Richard Bernstein Advisors
    • Tax Efficient Income
    • Thematic Investing
    • Volatility Resource
  • Tools
    • ETF Screener
    • ETF Country Exposure Tool
    • ETF Sector Tracker Tool
    • ETF Database Categories
    • Head-To-Head ETF Comparison Tool
    • ETF Stock Exposure Tool
    • ETF Issuer Fund Flows
    • Indexes
    • Mutual Fund To ETF Converter
    • ETF Data for Journalists
    • ETF Nerds
  • Research
    • First Bitcoin ETF
    • ETF Education
    • Equity Investing
    • Dividend ETFs
    • Leveraged ETFs
    • Inverse ETFs
    • Index Education
    • Index Insights
    • Top ETF Sectors
    • Top ETF Issuers
    • Top ETF Industries
  • Webcasts
  • Themes
    • AI ETFs
    • Blockchain ETFs
    • See all Thematic Investing ETF themes
    • ESG Investing
    • Marijuana ETFs
  • Multimedia
    • ETF 360 Video Series
    • ETF Trends on Videos
    • ETF Trends on Podcasts
    • ETF Prime Podcast
  • Company
    • About Us
    • Swag Store
  • PRO
    • Pro Content
    • Pro Tools
    • Advanced
    • FAQ
    • Pricing
    • Free Sign Up
    • Login
  1. Trending on ETF Database: Safe-Haven ETFs Drew Investors’ Attention This Week
News
Share

Trending on ETF Database: Safe-Haven ETFs Drew Investors’ Attention This Week

Iuri StrutaApr 14, 2016
2016-04-14

ETFdb.com analyzes the search patterns of our visitors each week. By sharing these trends with our readers, we hope to provide insights into what the financial world is concerned about and how to position your portfolio.

The global equity markets have continued to grow this week, but our weekly top-visited ETF pages show investors’ jitters are on the rise, with safe-haven assets in great demand. How else can we explain the Japanese yen, gold, and silver topping our list by a significant margin this week? It should also be noted that the Japanese yen is on this list for the second consecutive week.

ETF Trends Bubble Chart

The Japanese Yen: The Sky's the Limit

On Monday, the Japanese yen reached a fresh 17-month high against the U.S. dollar at 107.63 yen for $1, prompting pundits of all stripes to muse on the currency’s climb and bewilderedly attempt to explain it. The currency’s strength is neither driven by fundamentals nor by its safe-haven status. Japan’s interest rates are situated at rock-bottom levels, while global financial markets have been calm lately. Some have argued the yen strengthened because of the relative weakness of the dollar, but others pointed to the yen being used as a funding currency because of its cheapness.

Whatever the reason for the yen’s ascent, the move has surely attracted many visitors to our Japanese yen ETF page. Viewership increased this week by a staggering 300% compared to the previous week. It is worth noting that last week the yen took the second spot in our list with a 35% increase in viewership, showing rising interest in the currency. The yen has been the best performing among its Asian peers since the beginning of the year as seen by the Guggenheim CurrencyShares Japanese yen Trust ETF (FXY C), which rose 9.9% YTD.


Content continues below advertisement

CurrencyShares FXY ETF Chart

There are fears that the Japanese central bank is running out of options to drive down the value of the yen, having already deployed a huge QE program and setting negative interest rates on deposits. The market may have grown tired of seeing the central bank consistently missing its inflation and growth targets, and has been reluctant to react to devaluation moves. Still, the yen weakened somewhat to 109.09 against the U.S. dollar following comments by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga that intervening to halt one-sided currency moves was not against the Group of 20 agreement to avoid competitive currency devaluation. The comments suggest that Japan may soon deploy measures specifically targeted at depreciating the yen.

Gold Miners: Glittering Like It’s ‘09

It has been a while since any firm digging stuff out of the ground heard good news from the public markets. Although many of these companies are still struggling to do so, those producing gold may now breathe easy. The price of gold has risen nearly 17% since the beginning of the year, likely turning a corner.

Gold’s outperformance has inevitably attracted interest from investors and from our readers this week. Viewership of our gold miners ETFs page increased about 97% this week compared to last week. The main reason for gold miners’ popularity was their outperformance relative to the spot price of gold, with some of ETFs posting double-digit gains over the last week alone. For instance, Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX B+), a fund consisting of industry majors such as Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) and Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM), was up roughly 6% since Friday last week and has risen an impressive 56% since the beginning of the year. ETFs containing junior miners have gained even more, with the Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ B+) jumping more than 5% since last Friday and 60% year to date.

Market Vectors GDXJ Chart

Silver Miners: In the Shadow of Its Shinier Sister

Historically, the spot price of silver has mostly moved in tandem with gold prices. So the fact that silver miners are positioned right behind their gold counterparts in our popularity contest should not raise any eyebrows. Our page tracking silver miners ETFs saw its traffic increase 76% this week compared to last week. This was mostly due to the outstanding performance of these ETFs, which posted similar returns as gold mining ETFs. The Silver Miners ETF (SIL B-) has spiked nearly 9% over the past week alone, extending year-to-date gains to as much as 58%.

Silver Miners ETF Chart

Financials Equities: Worries Mount

Viewership of our financials equities ETFs page spiked by some 60% in the past week. Financial and banking stocks have had a good run since the global financial and economic crisis took them down about eight years ago. But lately, financial stocks have given investors reasons to worry about their performance, considering a tougher regulatory environment, low interest rates hurting profitability, and difficulties faced by heavily indebted shale gas players.

The year-to-date performance of many ETFs tracking the industry remains in negative territory, with several down by as much as 10%. However, last week saw a small rebound as several banking giants, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of New York Mellon (BK), posted strong financial results for the last quarter. The Vanguard Financials ETF (VFH A+), a fund containing banking giants such as Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C), rose over 1% this week, trimming year-to-date losses to 2.2%.

Vanguard VFH Chart

Natural Gas: Dreaming of Recovery

Natural Gas ETFs have been badly hit over the past few years as a large swath of commodities slumped to lows not seen since the Great Recession. Even the year-to-date performance of many natural gas ETFs remains deep in the red. But this week, some positive news combined with a small rebound has promoted the belief that natural gas may have found the light at the end of the tunnel and could stage a recovery over the next several months.

These developments garnered reader interest this week; the number of visitors to our natural gas ETFs page soared by 58% compared to last week. Natural gas futures rose impressively this week on expectations of a warm summer, boosting demand for air conditioning. This was coupled with a decline in shale production. U.S. Energy Department forecasts supply to shrink by 1.1% in May compared to April.

United States Natural Gas ETF Chart

Although still down 22% since the start of the year, the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG B-), jumped 2.5% from the beginning of this week till Wednesday. Considering the commodity’s very low price, a recovery may be indeed under way.

The Bottom Line

Without an obvious reason, safe-haven ETFs and assets have been popular this week for their outperformance. Three of them topped our list: the Japanese yen, gold miners, and silver miners ETFs. And considering that financial stocks were also in the top, but for their relative underperformance, investors could rightly begin to worry whether something is brewing in the global equity markets. Finally, natural gas ETFs also attracted visitors due to the possibility of a recovery in the commodity.

By analyzing how you, our valued readers, search our property each week, we hope to uncover important trends that will help you understand how the market is behaving so you can fine-tune your investment strategy. At the end of the week, we’ll share these trends, giving you better insight into the relevant market events that will allow you to make more valuable decisions for your portfolio.

» Popular Pages

  • Tickers
  • Articles

Feb 03

Main Management Market Note: February 3, 2023

Feb 03

SPYI, a High-Income ETF Within Equities, Up 10%

Feb 03

Navigating Exchange FOMO for Advisors

Feb 03

In 2022, Main Supply of EU Electricity Was Renewable

Feb 03

VettaFi’s ETF Rising Stars: January 2023

Feb 03

Big Tech Is No Longer Certain; Consider Active

Feb 03

Equal-Weight Cloud Computing ETF WCLD Hits Buy Signal

Feb 03

American Century's KORP, VALQ Hit 5-Year Mark

Feb 03

Bitcoin Opens 2023 Strong, Outperforms Bonds

Feb 03

These 2 ETFs Show Growth Is Back in Style

QQQ

Invesco QQQ Trust

SPY

SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust

VOO

Vanguard S&P 500 ETF

VGT

Vanguard Information...

SMH

VanEck Semiconductor ETF

XLK

Technology Select Sector SPDR...

VTI

Vanguard Total Stock Market...

SOXX

iShares Semiconductor ETF

BLOK

Amplify Transformational Data...

META

Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF


Content continues below advertisement

Loading Articles...
Help & Info
  • Contact Us
Tools
  • ETF Screener
  • ETF Analyzer
  • Mutual Fund to ETF Converter
  • Head-To-Head ETF Comparison
  • ETF Country Exposure Tool
  • ETF Stock Exposure Tool
  • ETF Performance Visualizer
  • ETF Database Model Portfolios
  • ETF Database Realtime Ratings
  • ETF Database Pro
More Tools
  • ETF Launch Center
  • Financial Advisor & RIA Center
  • ETF Database RSS Feed
Explore ETFs
  • ETF News
  • ETF Picks of the Month
  • ETF Category Reports
  • Premium Articles
  • Alphabetical Listing of ETFs
  • Best ETFs
  • Browse ETFs by ETF Database Category
  • Browse ETFs by Index
  • Browse ETFs by Issuer
  • Compare ETFs
Legal
  • Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
  • © 2023 VettaFi LLC. All rights reserved.
Follow ETF Database
Follow ETF Database

Advertisement

Is Your Portfolio Positioned With Enough Global Exposure?

ETF Education Channel

How to Allocate Commodities in Portfolios

Tom LydonApr 26, 2022
2022-04-26

A long-running debate in asset allocation circles is how much of a portfolio an investor should...

Core Strategies Channel

Why ETFs Experience Limit Up/Down Protections

Karrie GordonMay 13, 2022
2022-05-13

In a digital age where information moves in milliseconds and millions of participants can transact...

}
X