Thursday, October 31, 2013

Treat and Trick

Happy Halloween!

What a wonderful treat for the fans and the city of Boston as the Boston Red Sox defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in 6 games to win their 3rd World Series in the last 10 seasons – congratulations Boston Strong!

Back in our world of ETFs, we thought Halloween would be a good day to explore the Risk side of our ratings and in particular look at whether Levered and Inverse are often a “Trick” as it relates to Risk.  The majority of our subscribers, stick to the ETPs that do not employ leverage and are not Inverse.  As of today, here are the highest Risk Rated ETPs without leverage and not inverse in nature.  Just click on the Ticker for a comprehensive TearSheet:

Ticker
Name
Risk
C-Tracks Linked to the CVOLT Index ETN
9.33
Guggenheim Solar ETF
8.93
Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF
8.83
ELEMENTS SPECTRUM Large Cap U.S. Sector Momentum ETN
8.64
Global X Gold Explorers ETF
8.47
Market Vectors Egypt Index ETF
8.28
Global X Pure Gold Miners ETF
7.93
UBS ETRACS S&P 500 Gold Hedged Index ETN
7.85
Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF
7.78
VelocityShares Daily Long VIX Short-Term ETN
7.76

Now we certainly understand that there are those folks out there with an appetite for Leverage and Inverse who employ strategies that use them effectively.  Here are today’s ETPs with the highest Risk Scores inclusive of Levered and Inverse

Ticker
Name
Inverse
Levered
Risk
Direxion Daily India Bull 3x Shares ETF
-
Yes
10.00
Direxion Daily Latin America Bull 3x Shares ETF
-
Yes
9.65
Direxion Daily Natural Gas Bull 3x Shares ETF
-
Yes
9.57
Direxion Daily China 3X Bull Shares ETF
-
Yes
9.54
VelocityShares 3x Long Silver ETN
-
Yes
9.53
VelocityShares 3x Long Crude ETN
-
Yes
9.51
Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bull 3x Shares ETF
-
Yes
9.50
VelocityShares 3x Inver Brent Crude ETN
Yes
Yes
9.45
Direxion Daily Emerging Markets Bull 3X ETF
-
Yes
9.37

There is a ton more to discuss and explore within these dynamics outside of this post – all available at ETFG Scanner.  

We hope that everyone, including your little trick-or-treaters, have a safe and wonderful Halloween and thank you for reading ETFG Daily Perspectives. 

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

The Financials

Over the last several months, there has been no shortage of big issues out in the news that have impacted the markets i.e., Federal Government Shutdown, Healthcare  But recently, the Financial Sector seems to have led the pack with some of the biggest news and issues with regard to regulators, infractions and settlements etc.  It looks like JPM will settle the London Whale episode for a record number, SAC Capital appears on the verge of pleading guilty to securities fraud and now UBS and Deutsche Bank are involved in a probe for possible foreign exchange manipulation.

It’s a big world out there and a big financial services sector as well and there will always be things happening both positive and negative.  However, given the enormity of these settlements and the close proximity and therefore perceived association with the overall financial services arena, one has to ask what the impact may have been or may be on the sector overall at least in the short term.

We took a look at the overall Financial Sector of ETFs and removed the Inverse and Levered Funds to create a baseline group which numbered about 35 Financial Services ETFs and 1 ETN.  At least for this quick post, we simply ranked these Funds by their trailing 6 month performance and listed their respective ETFG Risk and Reward Ratings.  Below are the best performing funds of that baseline group.

Ticker
Name
6M Perf
Risk
Reward
Global X Brazil Financials
14.22%
6.36
7.69
iShares MSCI Europe Financials Sector Index Fund ETF
11.54%
4.46
4.61
Powershares KBW International Financial Portfolio ETF
10.32%
4.81
4.04
SPDR S&P International Financial Sector ETF
9.45%
4.51
2.90
iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Financials Sector Index Fund ETF
8.61%
4.52
4.39
Global X China Financials ETF
7.87%
4.97
9.36
iShares Dow Jones U.S. Broker-Dealers Index Fund ETF
6.59%
4.43
3.70
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Financials Sector Index Fund
6.55%
5.14
6.54
iShares S&P Global Financial Index Fund ETF
6.26%
5.30
6.96
iShares MSCI Far East Financials Sector Index Fund ETF
5.61%
3.97
4.25

In reviewing the list, it seems that the best performers are an eclectic group geographically with very different prospective ETFG Reward Ratings and therefore very different outlooks for the future.  This will be something to watch as we move forward. We encourage everyone to look deeper at these ratings and this group at ETFG Scanner.

Thank you for reading ETF Global Daily Perspectives.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

One Year Later

This week marks the one year anniversary of superstorm Sandy and our continued thoughts and prayers go out to all those families who were so tragically effected by this event.
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Yesterday we highlighted the top-ranked, equity ETFs as ranked by their overall ETFG Quant scores.  Many of our users also like to analyze the momentum that certain ETFs may be gaining or losing within these scores.  For example, you may want to understand where the ranking on a certain ETF was a month ago as compared to where it stands today.  You can easily do this within several categories of the ETFG Quant score. 

Below the surface of the ETFG Quant Model, the cornerstone of our overall ETF ratings and rankings, you will find four key categories of analysis:  Behavioral Finance, Fundamental, Global Themes and Quality.  To track these scores over time simply go to ETFG Quant Movers.  Each of the ETFs covered by ETFG Quant is also able to be analyzed by their respective categorical scores over various time periods.  As an example, here are the Top Quant movers for their overall ETFG Quant Score over the last month:

Ticker
Name
ETFG Quant
Change
63.55
10.50
56.66
10.50
59.15
9.73
58.45
9.40
37.62
9.27
67.76
8.97
65.95
8.95
57.64
8.13

For a more macro and collective view, there are dedicated sub-pages within the ETFG Quant Movers page for the top 25 ranked ETFs for the Behavioral, Fundamental and Global Themes categories.  In addition to the Quant Movers page, the ETFG Tearsheet can provide a quick overview of the overall ETFG Quant score and its underlying four component scores.

Thank you for reading ETFG Daily Perspectives.

Monday, October 28, 2013

ETFG Quant Top 10

We hope that everyone enjoyed the weekend.  

This week we wrap up the month of October and transition to November.  As we do this, we see that our models have rotated their focus during the month of October.  As October began, the ETFG Quant Top 10 were almost completely found outside the U.S with representation from all over the world and a diverse group of focuses as well.  Today as we begin the week, we find the Top 10 ranked equity ETFs, split evenly between domestically focused issues and the Asia-Pacific region. 

Here’s a quick table reflecting that:

Ticker
Name
Region
ETFG Quant
Powershares Dynamic Energy E&P ETF
North America
70.9
iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Fund ETF
Asia-Pacific
70.8
SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF
North America
70.8
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Asia ETF
Asia-Pacific
69.8
iShares PHLX SOX Semiconductor Sector
North America
68.4
SPDR S&P China ETF
Asia-Pacific
68.3
Powershares QQQ Trust ETF
North America
68.2
SPDR S&P Metals and Mining ETF
North America
68.1
iShares MSCI AC Asia Information Tech ETF
Asia-Pacific
68.0
iShares MSCI Indonesia Investable
Asia-Pacific
67.4

Each of the Ticker symbols above directly connect to an ETFG Tearsheet on that ETF, so please be sure to click through and check out any of these Top 10 in which you may have interest.

Thank you for reading ETFG Daily Perspectives and have a great week.