It’s time for another ETF trend summary and this time for July (oh how time flies)… Major indices posted the first monthly gain since April of this year led primarily by industrials (XLI) and energy (XLE). After a two month hiatus from gains we saw just about all prevailing trends reverse during July. As it stands for the close of July the market is marginally down year to date with Small Caps (IWM) posting the best index performance up nearly 5% thus far.
Take a look at the ETF heat maps below – we’re looking at July performance alone and YTD of some of the most prominent ETFs. As you can see the one month heatmap is painted in green, while the YTD is just about unchanged with exception to the extreme underperformers and extreme outperformers. As usual the brightest blocks are usually leveraged ETFs.
US Sector ETFs
- Materials led the way in US sectors growth with oil servicers not far behind. Other notable leaders include transportation and industrials.
- Healthcare (XLV) was a dead weight pulling down pharmaceuticals (PPH) as well.
Commodity ETFs
- The super star in commodities is no longer Gold, but all things agriculture (DBA). The outlier is Sugar (SGG) up nearly 23% in one month. In addition, growth dependent metals like, Copper (JJC) and Aluminum (JJU) recovered
- Perhaps the biggest, most useful news took place in oil. Oil (USO) gained ground for a second month and looks to be headed to the top of its monthly range. The price pattern looks supportive of USO gaining 15% or more over the next 2-3 months.
Currency ETFs
- Around the world the top performing currency of all the majors was the Australian dollar (FXA) while the US Dollar performed as one of the worst.
- To date the Japanese Yen (FXY) is best performer for 2010
International ETFs
- As others have pointed out, Latin America is en fuego right now and some of the best performers in the world are Brazil (EWZ, BRF) and all of Latin America (ILF)
- Not all BRIC countries are participating. China (FXI) was underperformed the US (SPY) in July while India (EPI) failed to participate in the rebound at all.
ETF HEATMAP (July Performance) - Click to enlarge
ETF HEATMAP (YTD Performance)
Disclosure: Long SGG, BRF