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Best/Worst Weekly ETF Returns

Best/Worst Weekly ETF Returns: Gold Miners Shine
By Olivier Ludwig and Cinthia Murphy | May 25, 2012

Related ETFs: GAZ / GDX / GLD / GLDX / GGGG / RING

Gold-linked equities exchange-traded funds were among the best-performing ETFs in the past week, even if investors in general yanked assets out of commodities ETFs and poured them into fixed-income funds.

The Global X Gold Explorers ETF (NYSEArca: GLDX) and the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEArca: GDX) posted gains of roughly 8 percent, with GDX seeing an impressive weekly trading volume of nearly 110 million shares.

Other gold funds such as the Global X Pure Gold Miners ETF (NYSEArca: GGGG) and the iShares MSCI Global Gold Miners ETF (NYSEArca: RING) were also among the top 10 best-performing funds.

Gold prices have been pressured recently as a result from growing concerns that Greece might leave the eurozone and that Spain is in serious financial trouble. The European solvency turmoil has weighed on the euro and turned investor attention to the U.S. dollar as the instrument of choice for hedging against risk at the moment.

Lower gold prices have been seen by many as a good buying opportunity, but in the past week investors have opted to do so via gold-linked equities rather than through physically backed funds like the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEArca: GLD).

On the flip side, a mixed bag of funds tapping into everything from commodities to foreign equities led the pack of worst-performing ETFs in the week.

None did worse than the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Natural Gas Total Return ETN (NYSEArca: GAZ), which shed more than 13 percent of its value in the past five sessions.

GAZ's decline largely reflects the fact that Barclays recently issued a note to investors pretty much suggesting the security might not be an appropriate investment. Barclays closed creations on the ETN in 2009, and since then the security has behaved quite like a closed-end fund, trading at hefty premiums. Such a premium is precisely what's been deflating since Barclays circulated its latest message on the ETN.

 

Top 10 Weekly Performers, Excluding Leverage/Inverse Funds and <1,000 Shares Traded

Ticker Name Weekly Performance Weekly Volume AUM ($, mm)
GLDX Global X Gold Explorers 8.38% 450,263 27.79
GDX Market Vectors Gold Miners 7.96% 109,365,815 8,313.07
UBC ETRACS CMCI Livestock Total Return ETN 7.56% 1,150 4.78
GGGG Global X PURE Gold Miners 7.22% 18,304 4.08
TSXV Global X S&P/TSX Venture 30 Canada 6.42% 14,449 2.32
ITB iShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction 6.07% 15,798,155 677.20
CHIM Global X China Materials 6.02% 7,428 2.21
SIL Global X Silver Miners 5.51% 1,545,983 278.46
FAA Guggenheim Airline 5.43% 58,079 14.91
RING iShares MSCI Global Gold Miners 5.14% 87,893 29.16

Bottom 10 Weekly Performers, Excluding Leverage/Inverse Funds and <1,000 Shares Traded

Ticker Name Weekly Performance Weekly Volume AUM ($, mm)
GAZ iPath Dow Jones-UBS Natural Gas Total Return ETN -13.28% 1,382,082 38.35
SSDD ETRACS ISE SSD ETN -9.03% 3,688 10.55
DPU PowerShares DB Commodity Long ETN -8.72% 11,692 5.66
BRAF Global X Brazil Financials -8.09% 13,293 3.50
EWAS iShares MSCI Australia Small Cap -8.00% 1,590 2.18
JO iPath Dow Jones-UBS Coffee Total Return ETN -8.00% 100,573 27.43
BDG PowerShares DB Base Metals Long ETN -7.91% 1,094 1.37
GERJ Market Vectors Germany Small-Cap -7.68% 1,595 4.73
FKU First Trust United Kingdom AlphaDEX -6.98% 2,370 4.23
VGEM EGShares Consumer Services GEMS -6.89% 7,255 0.92

Disclaimer: All data as of 6 a.m. Eastern time the date the article is published. Data is believed to be accurate; however, transient market data is often subject to subsequent revision and correction by the exchanges.