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 green for the week.
- Most major foreign markets, including developed and emerging markets, are up for the week.
- Non-farm employment change results were disappointing this morning. 38,000 new jobs were added, which is significantly less than the expected 158,000. The good news is that the unemployment rate fell to 4.7% vs. the consensus of 4.9%.
- Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen spoke at Harvard University last Friday. She reaffirmed that a rate hike in the coming months is a real possibility. However, given the new jobs data today, a rate hike in June seems highly unlikely.
- The Conference Board released the latest consumer confidence figure on Tuesday this week. The reading was 92.6, which was worse than the expected figure of 97.
- The ISM Manufacturing PMI was better than expected when it was reported on Wednesday, with a reading of 51.3 versus the 50.6 consensus.
- Crude oil inventories declined by 1.4M in the US, as reported on Thursday.
- In other oil news; the OPEC meeting on Thursday did not conclude with any output freezes.
- A noteworthy mention this week from international markets – Australian GDP growth came in better than expected at a growth rate of 1.1% vs. the consensus of 0.6%.
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Risk Appetite Review
- The overall market as measured by the S&P 500 ETF (SPY ) was slightly up at a 0.66% increase.
- The low volatility ETF (SPLV ) was the worst performer of the bunch, with only a 0.54% rally for the week.
- The high-beta ETF (SPHB ) is up the most, with an increase of 1.71% for the week.
Major Index Review
- All major indexes are up for the week, except the MSCI EAFE (EFA ), which is down 0.49%.
- The Russell 2000 ETF (IWM ) is the best performer for the week, with a 2.74% gain.
- The Emerging Markets ETF (EEM ) is the worst performer for the rolling month, with a 0.83% loss.
- The PowerShares QQQ ETF (QQQ ), which tracks the Nasdaq 100 Index, outperformed all other major index ETFs, up 4.36% for the rolling month.
Foreign Equity Review
- Major foreign tracking ETFs are showing mixed performance results for the week and rolling month.
- China equities (FXI ) have outperformed other foreign markets this week, with the ETF up 2.49%.
- The Russian ETF (RSX ) is the worst performer for the week, with a 2.27% loss.
- Brazil (EWZ ) remains the worst performer for the rolling one month, with the ETF down 6.34%.
- India (EPI ) is showing great performance for the rolling month, as the ETF is up 3.41%. The country’s equity markets might be headed for great performance largely due to its attractiveness relative to other emerging markets. There’s also the potential for further monetary easing by the central bank, rising dividends, and the possible introduction of the so-called Goods and Services Tax Bill as mentioned in our trends article this week.
Commodities Review
- Commodities posted mixed results this week, with all major precious metals down, while oil, natural gas, and agricultural commodities were in the green. Same trends persist for the rolling one month.
- Natural gas (UNG ) is by far the best performer this week, with the ETF up 11.37%.
- The worst performer is copper (JJC ), as the ETF is down 2.27% for the week.
- Silver (SLV ) is the worst-performing major commodity for the rolling month, as the ETF is down 9.13%.
- Oil (USO ) is up 9.21% for the rolling month, and is the best-performing commodity for that time period. The trend is slowing down now however, especially given that the OPEC countries did not come to an agreement to freeze production during their meetings this week.
Currency Review
- The U.S. dollar (UUP ) is flat this week, as the ETF is up only 0.08%. But given the Fed comments in May, the USD is up the most for the rolling month, with a gain of 3.17% in the ETF.
- The Japanese yen (FXY ) is the best-performing currency for the week, with a 0.87% gain in the ETF.
- The worst-performing major currency this week is the British pound (FXB ), as the ETF declined 1.33%.
- The Australian dollar (FXA ) remains the worst performer for the rolling one month, as the ETF is down 3.99%.
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Disclosure: No positions at time of writing.
