Van Eck has launched a new ETF focused solely on smaller sized gold miners and explorers than the predominant gold miners ETF GDX. This new Juniors ETF will trade under the ticker GDXJ. According to Investors Business Daily, here are some key stats:

• 63%, of the components are based in Canada, followed by the U.S. with 22%, Australia 11%, South Africa 2%, China 1% and the U.K. 1%
• expense ratio of 0.60%
• GDXJ's underlying index spiked 92.4% this year through Oct. 30.

Compare that performance with the gold bullion ETF GLD at 19% and GDX at 24% over that same period. This is because of the speculative nature of some of these juniors that explore for years with no finds and then spike massively upon a find announcement. As an example, the fund's largest holding CDE is up 128% during the Oct 30 YTD period. I've made no secret of my thoughts on gold being more of a weak dollar trade than anything else and that silver-platinum ETFs are better performers than gold if it continues to run and currency ETFs are the base case for continued US dollar depreciation, but I'm going to have to eat my hat if this trend continues.

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, emerging markets and commodities continued to show strength while the S&P500 ended with week with a respectable gain of 3.2%. I've made sure to include both some leveraged ETFs with their outsized gains (but take note of leveraged ETF risk of value destruction over time due to daily rebalancing) as well as non-leveraged traditional sector ETFs.

Hot List Leveraged ETFs

There's been a lot of press lately about the Carry Trade, and like all catchy trends in the investing world, by the time it's a routine fixture on CNBC and blogs, the smart money's been made and retail investors are left holding the bag when the bubble bursts (anyone recall housing 2007, oil 2008?). Conversely, the trend is your friend and given the continued decline of the US dollar of late, we may very well see this trend continue for months. In a flat or downward stock market following a 60% move from the bottom, the carry trade may be a nice place to earn a double digit gain in the meantime.

As outlined in this article on Currency ETFs, there are some currencies that are making great gains against the US Dollar and investors could have captured some nice low-correlation gains alongside stock gains in the past few months and this may continue.

What is the Carry Trade Exactly?

There's a particularly annoying trend in the drug business whereby companies that aren't in the biological manufacturing business refer to themselves as Biotechs. To some, this may seem like splitting hairs. To me, it is disingenuous and may be fooling investors into buying into a business model that doesn't live up to its name.

My first glimpse of the practice was during my MBA program when I took a course entitled Biotech Commercialization and it was an elective geared toward the Biotech option in the MBA program. I thought I was taking a course dealing with relevant issues facing a biological manufacturing company and the commercialization process which is the series of 10 or more years from concept to manufacturing utilizing complex biological processes to regulation by CBER, the Biologics arm of the FDA, to the submission of a BLA as opposed to an NDA, to a business model commensurate with Biologics as opposed to a typical Pharma commercial model, clinical trial topics relevant to biologics, etc. The adjunct professor was hailed as an officer and executive of a major "Biotech" company.

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

In its unabated effort to piss away as much money as possible on pet projects and freebies to pander to as many future voters as possible, the administration spent a whopping $24,000 per incremental vehicle sold under the cash for clunkers program, according to Edmunds.com, an independent data source with no hidden agenda for forging such a conclusion.

At that price, it probably made just as much sense to simply buy the 125,000 incremental sold vehicles and just give them away to some lucky voters. This "spreading of the money" that so enamors our president is really sickening and evidently, there's no end in sight.

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, emerging markets and commodities continued to show strength while some of the other usual suspects took a breather and the S&P500 ended with week with a small loss of 1%. I've made sure to include both some leveraged ETFs with their outsized gains (but take note of leveraged ETF risk of value destruction over time due to daily rebalancing) as well as non-leveraged traditional sector ETFs. There are some ETNs in the mix as well, since not every individual commodity is covered by an ETF. ETNs often carry additional counterparty risk, so ensure you've investigated a particular ETN and parent company solvency before considering.

Top Leveraged ETFs/ETNs

For some time now, I'd been employing covered calls as a means to generate income in a down/flat market. More recently, with markets rallying 60% from their lows, the Apple (AAPL) covered calls have come home to roost. For a detailed background and example of how the Apple position was structured, see How Covered Calls Work. While I've captured thousands of dollars in option premiums from my Google Credit Spreads (GOOG) and Apple covered calls over the past 2 years, it's not a free ride. You do of course forgo unlimited upside when a stock runs unabated like Apple has in recent months.

My most recent covered call position for Apple was opened during the crisis when shares were trading at $96 per share and I sold covered calls along the way as shares slowly moved upward. More recently though, shares zoomed right past 160 to over 200 as of today. As such, I had to start thinking about the exit strategy for the covered call which was well into the money.

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, emerging markets and commodities had quite a showing. I've made sure to include both some leveraged ETFs with their outsized gains as well as non-leveraged traditional sector ETFs. There are some ETNs in the mix as well, since not every individual commodity is covered by an ETF. ETNs often carry additional counterparty risk, so ensure you've investigated a particular ETN and parent company solvency before considering.

Top Leveraged ETFs

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, emerging markets, commodities and financials had quite a showing. I've made sure to include both some leveraged ETFs with their outsized gains as well as non-leveraged traditional sector ETFs.

ERX - Direxion Daily Energy Bull 3X Shares - Up 24% - This ETF seeks to return 300% of the daily performance of the Russell 1000 Energy Index. With oil prices drifting back up again this week, the underlying energy companies really took off in comparison to a nominal gain in oil for the week. Investors are possibly betting that ERX could serve as a strong leveraged hedge for another run-up in oil prices. If the upcoming hurricane season is not as benign as anticipated or if the global economy continues to pick up steam, an onward march for oil is certainly feasible. However, given the longer term loss in value in leveraged ETFs, I always start this section off by highlighting what can happen to these over time - see "How to Lose 90% in an ETF Fast".

AGQ - Ultra Silver ProShares - Up 20% - This is a 2X leveraged ETF tracking the return of silver. This one's been a regular on the hot list several times recently, as silver is more volatile than gold, hence, the run-ups have been even more spectacular. You'll want to check out how silver and other precious metal ETFs are doing in comparison to gold - much better! It's primarily a weak dollar/global recovery play, but gold tends to get all the press. If you're only investing in the gold weak dollar play, silver and other ETFs may actually do much better for you.

Each week, I normally 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. However, I wanted to provide a monthly update instead to demonstrate that over a monthly period, many non-leveraged ETFs make the list as top performers whereas on a weekly basis it's often the daily rebalancing leveraged ETFs.

This is due to the value destruction that occurs over time due to daily rebalancing as further outlined in this 3X ETF risk article. So, for a more "long term" view, if you consider monthly long term, as opposed to weekly snapshots, here are some hot trends from the month of September from ETFs not employing daily leveraged returns. As a point of reference, the S&P500 was up 3.5% for the month of September.

When the news initially broke about swine flu cases in Mexico, panic ensued. The media speculated that we might be looking at the next Spanish flu from the early 1900s where tens of millions died worldwide - more than World War II. People bled from their orifices and flooded morgues. The media was in full sensationalistic mode and ratings soared. So did something else. Opportunistic investors hopped on the internet and started searching out "swine flu stocks" in the hopes of identifying any company with the word vaccine or flu in its pipeline. They were rewarded handsomely with triple digit returns within weeks.

After a few months of speculation and media hype, it started to become evident that:

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, markets were generally down, so the leveraged short ETFs were in the news. Obviously, short ETFs don't make for a sustainable investment strategy, but if you believe markets have moved too far too fast and you're growing weary of the weak US dollar trend (or want to take a contrarian position), consider this Currency ETF List for plays in both developed and emerging market currencies versus the US dollar.

GWO - Credit Suisse Elements Global Warming - Up 16% - This ETN (note, an ETN generally carries the credit risk of the issuing company along with it, which most ETFs don't) seeks to replicate "50 exchange-listed companies with business segments that have an increased focus on products or services related to minimizing global warming". I put this one on the list because it did show a hefty return last week, but I'm not a big fan of these Elements ETNs. For instance, earlier in the year, investors saw returns of over 421% on a gold ETN which was completely disconnected from reality. This one has the same issuer and also has trading volume that is generally quite low - actually, zero shares on some days. My next best recommendation for this space would just be a solar ETF like TAN which is an oft-mentioned ETF on the hot list.

I read with interest this article highlighting how Netflix (NFLX) awarded the $1 Million Netflix Prize and announced a second $1 Million Challenge. The challenge was to achieve a 10 percent improvement over the accuracy of the Netflix movie recommendation system, which internal engineers have been unable to do.

The prospect of $1Million to teams of engineers and statisticians was enough to prompt several teams of civilians to compete for the prize and ultimately, now 7 people from the winning team will split the winnings.

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. Again this week, Real Estate, Energy, Financials and Solar were the hot performers. Markets have been in a virtual upward trajectory for months now and we still haven't seen the correction many analysts have called for. While you may miss out on further upside by dumping long positions altogether, perhaps writing covered calls while markets may be due for at least a mild correction given the recent run. Writing covered calls allows you to continue to capture moderate upside gains while providing insurance and income against a flat/declining market. Without further ado, some of last week's hottest ETFs of the standard and leveraged genre:

DRN - Direxion Daily Real Estate 3x - Up 27% - This 3X Return Real Estate Fund was the hottest ETF from last week, up an astounding 27% after a 22% return the prior week. DRN is 141% since launching in July. While this sounds appealing, note that ETFs tend to launch when their underlying sectors are hot. Real estate is just emerging from a near-collapse in the US and is rallying now. The way these leveraged ETFs work, on the upside, due to daily balancing, they can actually exceed a 3X total return over a brief period of time, if the run is virtually uninterrupted. However, over a long period of time, as a trend reverses (as they ultimately all do), the 3X daily return funds do not return anything near 3 times the underlying index due to daily rebalancing. In fact, over long periods of time, they often lose as much or MORE value than the underlying sector, even during a net positive upswing. I always caution investors to understand the risks and dynamics of these poorly understood ETFs before trading (I don't use the word "investing" with 3X ETFs - see why?).

I can't tell you the number of people I know that yanked ALL their money out of anything equities during the month of March which, looking back, was the worst possible time to do so in perhaps their entire lifetime (if you're reading this, I'm not judging you, but using as a teachable moment). The downward market move was fast and furious, and it certainly shook out a lot of investors. Traders that got it right - well, good for them - but they pretty much all work at Goldman Sachs (GS) - and most of the people reading this don't. However, for what should be long-term investors in 401K plans and other retirement accounts with a 20-30 year investment horizon, what logic is there in going to 100 cash or bonds in an account with so long to go?

Market Timing - How Good Are You?

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. For this week, Real Estate, Energy, Solar and some emerging market bourses were the hot performers. Note that indices are breaching the highs last seen pre-Lehman collapse and corporate insider selling is picking up. While you may miss out on further upside by dumping long positions altogether, perhaps Covered Call Option Strategies are a timely move while markets may be due for at least a mild correction given the recent run. Writing covered calls allows you to continue to capture moderate upside gains while providing insurance and income against a flat/declining market. Without further ado, some of last week's hottest ETFs of the standard and leveraged genre:

DRN - Direxion Daily Real Estate 3x - Up 22% - This 3X Return Real Estate Fund was the hottest ETF from last week, up 22%. DRN is 89% since launching in July. While this sounds appealing, note that ETFs tend to launch when their underlying sectors are hot. Real estate is just emerging from a near-collapse in the US and is rallying now. The way these leveraged ETFs work, on the upside, due to daily balancing, they can actually exceed a 3X total return over a brief period of time, if the run is virtually uninterrupted. However, over a long period of time, as a trend reverses (as they ultimately all do), the 3X daily return funds do not return anything near 3 times the underlying index due to daily rebalancing. In fact, over long periods of time, they often lose as much or MORE value than the underlying sector, even during a net positive upswing. I always caution investors to understand the risks and dynamics of these poorly understood ETFs before trading (I don't use the word "investing" with 3X ETFs - see why?).

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. For this week, the energy, financials and real estate sectors reversed course and started to shed some of the gains from earlier in the summer. Of course, the hot list this week is comprised of 2X and 3X daily return ETFs (see this full Leveraged ETF Ticker List for all of them - long and short), but I also like to include some straight non-leveraged momentum plays as well, given the drawbacks of holding leveraged ETFs for a long period of time (these are trades, not investments).

AGQ - ProShares Ultra Silver - Up 21% - With a 21% move last week, this 2X leveraged ETF tracking the return of silver is up an amazing 76% for the year. As I always caution with leveraged ETFs though, you must consider the long term leveraged ETF risk whereby share price degradation occurs due to volatility from daily rebalancing regardless of what the underlying index is doing.

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. For this week, energy, financials and emerging markets continued to rally. Of course, the hot list this week is comprised of 2X and 3X daily return ETFs (see this full Leveraged ETF Ticker List for all of them - long and short), but I also like to include some straight non-leveraged momentum plays as well, given the drawbacks of holding leveraged ETFs for a long period of time (these are trades, not investments).

ERX -Direxion Daily Energy Bull 3X - Up 8% - This ETF seeks to return 300% of the daily performance of the Russell 1000 Energy Index. With oil prices hitting $74 this week and breaching 2009 highs, if the trend continues, ERX could serve as a strong leveraged hedge for another runup in oil and of course, gas prices. If the upcoming hurricane season is not as benign as anticipated or if the global economy continues to pick up steam, an onward march for oil is certainly feasible. However, given the longer term loss in value in leveraged ETFs I pointed out earlier, there are several lower risk/lower cost options out there to hedge energy prices for the retail investor/consumer.

Investors and consumers seeking high yield income from savings and CD instruments are having a tough time of it right now in this low interest rate environment. As banks are lowering the rates they pay on savings and money markets to next to nothing and as CDs come due from a previous 4-5% yield, investors are left grappling with whether they should take on more risk seeking higher yield, or simply accept lower yields.

As I found out all too well, some banks will offer rates well above the going rate for a teaser period, advertise like hell, then abruptly drop rates weekly as I outlined with my Savings Rate Smackdown article. Conversely, investors lured by seemingly otherworldly investment notes yielding 11% may be left holding the bag if the offering company doesn't overcome near term liquidity problems since they are not FDIC insured.