Seven Top ETFs from Last Week - EDZ, FAZ, ZSL, ERY, VXX, DMM, FXY

Each week, I like to publish the past week's hottest ETFs to share some new trends and niche ETFs out there and give investors some new investing/diversification ideas. Last week, all global markets and emerging markets especially, took a beating. As such, the short index ETFs were on fire. While going long on a leveraged short ETF is obviously not a sustainable "investment" strategy, for traders anticipating a correction, they were rewarded handsomely. Aside from the 3X short daily balanced ETFs that performed well, I also included some other ETFs that don't employ 3x leverage that at least made money and also have some niche offerings.

Hot List Triple Short Daily Balanced ETFs

EDZ - Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares - Up 23% - The long Emerging Markets ETF EDC had been completely on fire up until last week, gaining 194%. However, last week, EDC reversed and the triple short ETF EDZ rallied 23%. This is really just a play on a correction for a trade. Given the beating emerging markets took in the 2008 downturn and the rapid ascent during the recovery, they're much more volatile and hence, you wouldn't want to be holding EDZ during an upswing, no matter what kind of hedging you employ. However, if you feel you can time the correction better than the next guy, this is your ETF.

FAZ - Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares - Up 18% - FAZ is another common ETF on this list along with its counterpart for triple long Financials FAS. Likewise, a bad week for global markets didn't bode well for the long ETF, so FAS rocketed 18% on the month. While I often see "resistance" and other technical indicator terminology on the boards associated with FAS and FAZ, I don't think that holds much water for leveraged ETFs since they're really just a derivative of the real underlying index and actual valuation drifts (generally downward) over time due to the leveraged ETF risk whereby you can lose money even if you bet in the right direction and hold on too long.

ZSL - UltraShort Silver ProShares - Up 16% - With silver being even more volatile than gold, this 2X short silver ETF rallied in a declining industrial/precious metals environment. Not one to predict which way precious metals are going to go, if you are looking for a play on them one way or the other, silver moves much faster than gold, even though gold tends to get all the press.

ERY - Direxion Daily Energy Bear 3X Shares - Up 14% - With oil dropping 4% on the week, this triple short Energy sector (note: tracks companies, not the price of oil itself) gained 14%. While on a short term basis, ERY has performed well, the trend during the recovery has been up - big. ERY is down 66% YTD.

Hot List - Other ETFs

VXX - iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN - Up 14% - The VXX ETN is the best way to play the VIX which is a common measure of volatility or "fear" in the market. In retrospect, it was kind of a no-brainer to pick up some VXX recently since volatility had approached lows not seen in well over a year and would act as a natural hedge against a correction - plus, the downside risk was minimal. The VIX can't go to zero, but it could easily spike. Unfortunately, I didn't use my brain and act on my hunch and missed a nice easy lurch upward. I had employed other cheap option strategies to hedge (rather than flat out buying Puts which gets expensive) which are now coming into the money, but nothing like a non-leveraged 1 week gain of 14%.

DMM - MacroShares Major Metro Housing Down - Up 6% - DMM is the down leg for the Case-Shiller home price index and while it's not a perfect representation of real estate in the US (since real estate is local), it's the best measure out there. In order to juice the returns, DMM and the long leg UMM do employ leverage, but shares of both have been rather muted since launch in the summer. UMM is up 17% overall and DMM is down 15% overall.

FXY - CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust - Up 2% - The Japanese Yen continued to gain strength against the US Dollar as many currencies have been of late. As outlined in this more detailed description of how to use weak dollar ETFs rather than opening a Forex account to either speculate or hedge against a looming US Dollar crisis, FXY is up 10% over the prior 6 months and if the US is spooked by another round of home foreclosures or corporate debt defaults, you'll likely continue to see the US dollar weaken further against other established currencies, even possibly some of the emerging market currencies listed.