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• Following The Money In Commodities ETFs
• Sprott Launches Platinum/Palladium CEF
• Best/Worst Weekly ETF Returns: Gold Miners Tank

• PALL 100% Rate It
• PGM 0% Rate It
• SLV 89% Rate It
• VNM 100% Rate It
• XOP 0% Rate It

The ETFS Physical Palladium ETF (NYSEArca:PALL) was the top-performing ETF in the week ended Thursday, Aug. 23, tagging on gains of 11.76 percent and leading a roster of precious metals funds up on supply concerns linked to the ongoing miner strike in South Africa.

The gains came as the Dow Jones industrial average gave up 1.45 percent of value, or more than 192 points, in the five-day period ended Thursday, closing at 13,057.46.

Labor unrest in the world's largest platinum- and palladium-producing country sparked a sharp rally in the prices for metals such as platinum, palladium, silver and gold that landed platinum prices at a four-month high in the past week. South Africa accounts for roughly three-quarters of the world's platinum supply.

Lonmin, the No. 3 platinum miner, shut down all of its operations amid a violent clash with workers that left at least 44 people dead so far and has resulted in a lost output that pushed up platinum prices significantly, according to a report on Hard Assets Investors.

Both platinum and palladium are used in auto catalytic converters-the first in diesel engines and the latter in gasoline engines-so the markets tend to move in tandem.

PALL, along with platinum-focused ETRACs CMCI Long Platinum Total Return ETN (NYSEArca:PTM) and the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Platinum Total Return ETN (NYSEArca:PGM) all saw sharp gains in the five-day period.

Several silver funds along with one gold miner ETF were also among the week's top-performing strategies. The iShares Silver Trust (NYSEArca:SLV) rallied 8.15 percent in the week amid a trading volume that averaged some 14 million shares a day.

Bottom Dwellers

On the flip side, the Market Vectors Vietnam ETF (NYSEArca:VNM) was the worst-performing fund in the Thursday-to-Thursday period, bleeding nearly 9.8 percent as investors grew jittery over Vietnam's economic prospects.

Vietnam was until not too long ago a booming center of economic growth in Asia, but the arrest this week of its prominent banking tycoon Nguyen Duc Kien, on what are still "vague" business-related charges, fueled concerns that more arrests in the financial segment could be looming, the latest tidbit to point to the country's growing economic troubles.

Vietnam's equities market plunged to its steepest decline in four years in the past week, raising concerns that the country could be on track to relive the economic meltdown seen in Thailand in 1997.

Still, VNM was retracing some of its losses in Friday's session. IndexUniverse's weekly data looks at a Thursday-to-Thursday window.

Aside from VNM, a couple of energy funds were found among the week's bottom performers, such as the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (NYSEArca:XOP), which lost 3.45 percent of its value.

XOP is a modified equal-weight hedging fund that invests in oil & gas exploration names such as Tesoro Corp., McMoRan Exploration and Valero Energy Corp.

Interestingly, short-sellers have been upping their bets against XOP, most recently in July, with short positions relative to the outstanding long float on XOP rising 3 percent in July from June, according to IndexUniverse's latestShort Report .

Shorts on XOP equated at the end of July to 222 percent-or some $1.7 billion-of all outstanding long interest in the $820 million fund. Still, the ETF is down only 0.4 percent year-to-date.

Top 10 Weekly Performers, Excluding Leverage/Inverse Funds and 'lt;1,000 Shares Traded

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.

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