American markets weren't able to keep up last week's momentum as
stocks were unable to hold onto gains at the close. Thanks to this,
the Dow finished lower by three points, the S&P fell by a
single point, while the Nasdaq tumbled 12 points, or 0.4% on the
session.
In terms of sector performances, it was a pretty mixed day
across the board, although investors did see some strength in the
consumer goods, and independent oil and gas segments. Meanwhile, in
the red, investors saw big banks, health care, and some of the
large tech names lead the way on the downside (read
Do ex-Financial Funds Make Safer Dividend ETFs?
).
Treasury bond investing saw decent inflows once again, as the
Ten Year trended down to the 1.50% mark, while investors also saw
yields decrease in much of Europe as well. For commodity trading,
it was largely mixed, although softs and precious metals did see
some modest increases while crude oil declined to the $90/bbl.
level.
ETF trading was moderate-to-light across many of the sectors, as
most of the big name products saw lower-than-average volume levels.
Investors did see, however, outsized interest in the U.S. sector
market, a few currency funds, and a couple of the style box ETFs as
well (read
Mid Cap ETF Investing 101
).
One ETF in particular that saw outsized volume interest was the
WisdomTree Dreyfus Chinese Yuan ETF (
CYB
)
which saw volumes nearly 20 times the daily average. Still, despite
the heavy volume, CYB finished the day in a narrow range, losing
just one cent on the day (read
China Currency ETFs: Slow and Steady Growth in
2012?
).
Interestingly, more than half of the volume came in a block
trade just after 2PM at the low point of the fund during Monday's
session. Also, it should be noted that the other China currency
ETFs saw strong trading while the most popular China equity ETFs
saw volume levels far below normal, suggesting a shift to the yuan
as the preferred way to play China, at least in the short term.
(Currently, CYB has a Zacks ETF Rank of 2 or 'Buy')
Another fund which saw outsized trading interest on the day was
the
PowerShares Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt Fund (
PCY
)
. This product usually does about three quarters of a million
shares during a normal day, but experienced a volume spike to over
2.1 million during Monday trading (read
Emerging Markets Sovereign Bond ETFs: Safe with
Attractive Yields
).
Volume was pretty well spread out across the day, although a
large block trade of about 290,000 shares did hit the wires around
the mid day period. Investors also saw solid volume days in a
number of other products in the space, although none of these other
contenders really saw the level of volume or price increase that
was seen in PCY during the week's opening session.
(see more in the
Zacks ETF
Center
)
Author is long PCY.
WISDMTR-CH YUAN (CYB): ETF Research Reports
PWRSH-EM SVN DP (PCY): ETF Research Reports
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