Thanks to lower bond yields in Europe and speculation over a
strong China GDP report, investors scooped up stocks yet again in
Thursday trading. All of the major indexes finished up at least
1.3% on the session, led by strength in the industrial, tech, and
banking sectors.
The U.S. dollar wasn't quite as lucky as stocks, as the
benchmark U.S. dollar index slid by $0.42 to the $79.32 mark in
today's session. The greenback was mixed against the euro and the
pound, lost against the yen, but gained nearly a penny against the
Aussie dollar.
Commodity markets were broadly positive-- despite the flat
dollar-- as pretty much every natural resource gained on the day.
Crude oil added about 1.2% while soft products also gained nearly
2% across the board. Industrial metals were also strong, as copper
added about seven cents a pound on hopes from China.
ETF Trading was mixed from a volume perspective, as many of the
most popular products saw average days. Additionally, many popular
commodity and style box ETFs also saw below average trading,
despite the gains in the market (read
Oil Bull Is No Place For MLP ETF Investors
).
With that being said, there were certainly some exceptions,
namely in the case of the
Market Vectors Bank and Brokerage ETF (
RKH
)
. This fund saw volume of nearly 165,000 shares, well above the
45,000 average that the popular ETF usually sports.
This surge in volume was likely due to strong performances from
many of the top holdings in the product. Big banks saw gains across
the board while Citi and Bank of America both added more than 3% on
the day, ahead of tomorrow's key earnings report from bellwether JP
Morgan. In total, the financial ETF gained more than 1.9% on
the session, easily outpacing the broad market for the day.
Another fund which saw outsized trading volumes in Thursday
trading was the
Global X Silver Miners ETF (
SIL
)
. This popular ETF-which has nearly $300 million in AUM-saw volume
exceed 725,000 shares, well above the 214,500 average that the
product usually sees (see
Silver ETFs Outshine Gold
).
This huge bump in interest was probably due to the solid
performance in silver during Thursday trading. The while metal
added about 2.7% today on optimism in the U.S. as well as
speculation over more demand in China.
Thanks to this, investors sought to gain a 'leveraged' way to
play the precious metal in equity form. Since SIL often trades at a
multiple to the underlying silver, it ended up being a strong
performer on the day, adding close to 4.6% for the session and
spurring increased interest from a variety of mining ETF
investors.
See more on ETFs at the
Zacks
ETF Center
.
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