ETF Global

China and energy continue to dominate Quant today and the gold miners’ GDX didn’t like coming out on the losing end of yesterday’s analysis, it had a nice trading reversal and regained 10 Quant positions into 3^rd place.  The noticeable movement in Quant’s upper ranks was among foreign funds however. The iShares MSCI France Index Fund (EWQ) moved back into the top 10 gaining 18 positions into 3^rd place and their MSCI Spain Index Fund (EWP) remains in the top 10 but moved down 2 places into 5^th.  Today’s big mover though is the iShares MSCI Canada Index Fund (EWC) rocketing 131 places into Quant’s 9^th position.  The fund has spent the last month occupying the mid double digit Quant ranks getting as high as 10^th place on September 13^th.  A solid Sentiment score of 85.4 is its highest category which leaves room for its Technical and Fundamental scores to catch up.  Its blended Technical Score of 62.4 had a strong move up from the prior day’s 56.8 as all three sub categories gained ground on the rest of the equity ETF universe.  Not much movement on its Fundamental side which has an impressive 98.3 price/book value cross rank (quantified in our proprietary method) but less impressive price/cash flow and price/earnings ranks.  The improving Technical Scores suggest the market expects those Fundamental Scores to improve after earnings season.

Looking at how the market and Quant reacted to the presidential debate, Mitt Romney said he likes coal and the two narrow niche coal funds in our equity universe both moved up nicely with the Market Vectors Coal Fund (KOL) gaining 64 positions into 22^nd place, higher than it’s been in several months.  This could be a good play if the market begins to price in a Romney win. The president said he's fond of the term "Obamacare” but Quant isn’t very fond of the health care sector, the 25 funds with that focus have an average Quant rank of 371 out of 809 ranked funds and yesterday’s average move was down 22 places.  Only one health care fund sits on the ETFG100 list, the SPDR Health Care Select Sector Fund (XLV) at 68^th place.  There were 4 on that list before Wednesday’s debate.  Your humble data miner’s dearly departed Dad said never talk politics or religion with clients so I’ll stop there.  Have a nice weekend and thanks for using www.etfg.com.