Stocks again slumped in Tuesday trading as weakness in some key
earnings reports set the bearish mood for the day. The Dow finished
off 0.8% while the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 both slumped by 0.9%
as well.
Severe weakness was seen in the tech segment, led by a 5.9%
decline in
Cisco (
CSCO
)
, while
UPS
and
Eli Lilly (
LLY
)
both slumped by more than 4% as well. Seemingly, consumer goods and
financials held up better than most, although these segments
broadly finished in the red as well (see
Three Defensive ETFs for a Bearish Market
).
Thanks to this risk off trade, as well as more European worries,
the U.S dollar had another strong day while the 10 Year Treasury
bond fell to a yield of just 1.4%. Commodities were also under some
pressure on the session as grains fell thanks to some much needed
rain, although oil and gold did stay in the positives.
ETF trading was surprisingly solid during Tuesday as many of the
major products saw higher than normal trading volumes. This was
especially the case in some of the key commodity funds, while mid
caps and broad markets also saw more shares than usual change
hands.
In particular, ETF investors saw the
iShares MSCI Hong Kong Index (
EWH
)
trade on outsized volume. The ETF usually does about 2.7 million
shares on a normal day although this spiked to just over 7.3
million during Tuesday trading (see
Hong Kong ETF Investing 101
).
A large chunk of this interest came in the final hour of the
session as this is where most of the volume was concentrated. This
included a 1.8 million share block, and a few half million share
moves as well.
Investor interest in the final hour helped to push the fund back
to breakeven to close out the day. This was also partially due to
reports from the city that the recent typhoon wasn't
nearly as bad as some feared
, helping to lower risk levels when investing in this special
administrative region of China.
Another ETP which saw a great deal of interest was the
Credit Suisse Cushing 30 MLP Index ETN (
MLPN
).
This product usually does just about 96,000 shares in volume but
saw a huge spike in interest to just over 820,000 shares today (see
Oil Bull Market Is No Place For MLP ETF
Investors
).
Block trading did dominate the note's trading profile during
Tuesday's session while most of the volume was concentrated in the
final few hours of the session. Still, the product finished the day
down 1.3%, although much of the volume came in after these losses.
Clearly, some investors are once again looking to this space for
income and relative safety during this turbulent market
environment.
(see more in the
Zacks ETF
Center
)
CISCO SYSTEMS (CSCO): Free Stock Analysis
Report
ISHARS-HONGKONG (EWH): ETF Research Reports
LILLY ELI & CO (LLY): Free Stock Analysis
Report
CS-CUSHING 30 (MLPN): ETF Research Reports
UTD PARCEL SRVC (UPS): Free Stock Analysis
Report
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