Week-in-Review: Realty Sector Leads, While Energy Still Lags

Nick Perry (Schaeffer's Investment Research) submits: Last week we saw a bias to the downside, as two-thirds of my list headed lower, with energy the weakest. This week, we see energy continuing lower, while many other groups were able to bounce:

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My select list of ETFs showed that 83 percent were trading higher on the week, with a number of funds of gaining four percent. Realty ETFs take the top slot, with biotech, silver, retail, and semis also posting solid gains. Last week, we saw that the NASDAQ 100 Trust (QQQQ) made the top-performing side of the graph, and that is once again the case. It has been awhile since the QQQQ was leading, so I think that is worth pointing out. More thoughts on the Nasdaq Composite (^COMP) can be found in this video.

However, the real mover this week was the US Oil Fund (USO as it continued to slide lower. Last week's column showed an eight-percent loss and we see the oil ETF lost nearly that much this week. The drop in "black gold" has sparked talks of an "emergency" OPEC meeting so it will be interesting to see if that can bolster crude.

One of the differences between this week and last is that, while oil was lower, ETFs that track oil-related stocks were more resilient. Last week I introduced a new format that included charts with the nine-day relative strength index [RSI]. Based on that, I said that we could see a short-term pause in the selling pressure that was weighing on the PowerShares Oil Services (PXJ) and Oil Service HOLDRS Trust (OIH) . When you look at the OIH chart below that seems to be playing out.

Top Performing ETFs

Both the OIH and XLE are trying to bounce out of oversold levels but, as I said in my blog, there are some technicals hurdles that loom overhead:

Bottom Performing ETFs