Monday's Top Traded Equities: XLF Sandwiched Between Fannie and Freddie

By Jim Wiandt

As the government stepped in to clean up another mess and markets surged, ETFs were again on the front lines.

I checked out the most traded U.S. equities by volume yesterday and saw something that was quite striking.  #1 Fannie Mae  #2 Select Sector SPDRS Financials #3 Freddie Mac  #4 SPDRs  #5 QQQQ #6 Washington Mutual. By the way, if you're interested, Yahoo Finance shows most traded (and other market metrics) now in real time.

Quite something.  Three basket cases and 3 ETFs riding the market's latest wave.

Most traded U.S. Equities  by Share on September 8^th, 2008

Name	Ticker	Share Volume	% Change	Price
Fannie Mae	FNM	586 million	-89.63%	0.73
Select Sector SPDRs Financial	XLF	421 million	+4.32%	22.68
Freddie Mac	FRE	370 million	-82.75%	0.88
SPDRs Trust	SPY	364 million	+2.07%	126.99
Nasdaq 100 Trust	QQQQ	311 million	-0.32%	43.31
Washington Mutual	WM	240 million	-8.39%	4.02

Source: Yahoo Finance and Marketwatch

It just demonstrates what an incredibly powerful force ETFs have become as a proxy for various parts of the market.  The trading volumes, short volumes and the flows are just great indicators of what's going on in the different parts of the market.  In the bond markets and international markets in particular, the daily clear pricing has added transparency there. And of course in sectors, the big stories are told every day.

Speaking of that, also toward the top on volume yesterday as well were the ProShares Ultra Financial (UYG) and ProShares Ultra Short Financial (SKF) ETFs, which traded 133 million and 61 million shares, and were up 7.71% and  down 8.39% respectively.

ETFs, in addition to being highly liquid, tightly tracking, tax efficient and cost effective ways to access the market, have also made things a little more clear, and a little more fun, in how we look at markets.