Sector Performance This Week (GLD, USO, PSI, PXQ)

Nick Perry (Schaeffer's Investment Research) submits: Last week, we saw that returns were skewed to the upside as transports, oil services, and basic materials led the way. This week we find a strong reversal:

Of my list of 86 ETFs, only three showed a gain for the week and those three were all commodity-related funds -- oil, gold, and silver. The rest of the "top performing" funds were lower. These "relative leaders" consisted of bonds, health care, and consumer stocks. The AMEX Diamonds Trust (DIA) also made the upper half of the list. I pulled some data on the components and it looks like part of the DIA outperformance is due to a double-digit gain this week in General Motors (GM).

Turning to the week's worst performing, we see that the list is weighed down with technology groups. The skew may be partly influenced by the abundance of technology-related funds on my list, but the fact remains that semiconductors and networkers struggled this week.

For a longer-term perspective, the bullets below show how the ETFs listed above have faired during the past six months, prior to this week. In other words, it shows how they had been performing before this week's move.

Prior Six-Month Returns for This Week's Top Performing Sector Exchange Traded Funds:

* streetTRACKS Gold (GLD) +48.1%
* US Oil Fund (USO) n/a
* iShares Silver Trust (SLV) n/a
* iShares Lehman 1-3 Year Bond (SHY) -0.7%
* iShares Lehman Aggregate Bond Fund (AGG) -2.0%
* iShares Lehman 7-10 Year Bond (IEF) -3.1%
* SPDR-Health Care (XLV) +0.5%
* iShares Lehman 20+ Year Bond (TLT) -6.4%
* AMEX Diamonds (DIA) +9.5%
* SPDR-Consumer Discretionary (XLY) +6.7%
* iShares DJ U.S. Healthcare (IYH) +0.7%
* SPDR-Consumer Staples (XLP) +3.9%

Prior Six-Month Returns for This Week's Bottom Performing Sector Exchange Traded Funds:

* PS Zacks Micro Cap (PZI) +21.3%
* Semiconductor HOLDRS (SMH) +7.4%
* PS Building & Construction (PKB) +21.2%
* iShares Nasdaq Biotech (IBB) +2.2%
* PS Retail (PMR) +16.2%
* PS WilderHill Clean Energy (PBW) +47.8%
* First Trust DJ Select MicroCap (FDM) +17.6%
* PS Hardware & Consumer Electronics (PHW) n/a
* iShares GS Semiconductor (IGW) +17.3%
* iShares GS Networking (IGN) +16.2%
* PS Networking (PXQ) +15.3%
* PS Semiconductors (PSI) +32.5%