U.S. markets slumped again in Tuesday trading as European
worries and concerns over industrial demand weighed on stocks
throughout the day. In particular, investors focused in on Cummins
(
CMI
) as the company warned on revenues thanks to weakness in its
overseas division.
As a result, the Dow fell by about 0.7%, while the S&P 500
slumped by 0.8% on the day. The Nasdaq, however, lost about 1% in
Tuesday trading, bucking the trend in Europe which saw most major
benchmarks finish the day in the green (read
Beyond Germany: Three European ETFs Tracking Strong
Countries
).
In terms of sectors, basic materials and big tech followed the
industrial segment lower in Tuesday's session, while consumer,
biotech, telecom, and utilities managed to hold up in the rocky
trading environment. In particular, investors saw heavy losses in
the independent oil and gas segment along with a 2.3% loss from
chip giant Intel as the company followed rival
AMD
lower.
Thanks to the risk off trade, investors saw continued inflows
into the U.S. dollar as the greenback added a bit against the
European currencies although it lost a tad against the yen and the
Aussie dollar. Meanwhile, the benchmark 10-year note ended the day
with a slightly lower yield, coming in at 1.51% to close out
Tuesday's session.
Unsurprisingly given the mood in the markets, demand for
commodities was light in today's trading. All of the energy
products slumped-led by a 4.5% loss in natural gas-while softs
retreated a bit and metals were mixed (read
Forget UNG: Try These Natural Gas ETFs Instead
).
ETF trading was light yet again, as investors traded
less-than-average amounts of shares in most of the commodity,
emerging market, and U.S. broad funds during Tuesday trading.
However, some outsized volumes were seen in the semiconductor,
bond, Latin American, and global sector products during the
uncertain trading day.
In particular, investors saw an outsized level of interest in
the
iShares MSCI All Peru Capped Index Fund (
EPU
)
. This product usually does about 300,000 shares in a normal day
but saw interest spike to just over one million shares during
today's session (read
Forget the BRIC ETFs, Focus on the PICKs
).
Interestingly, nearly none of the volume came during the first
few hours of the day and was instead concentrated in the mid
afternoon period for EPU. However, this burst of volume didn't
exactly help the fund as EPU finished the day lower by about 1.6%,
leaving the fund pretty much flat for the trailing one month
period.
Another product which was in focus during today's trading was
the
SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (
XSD
)
. This fund, like many other products in the semiconductor space,
saw outsized trading volume on the day as three times as many
shares changed hands as in a normal session (see
Three Great Tech ETFs That Avoid Apple
).
However, trading was concentrated into a few small blocks on the
day, leaving much of the day void of volume. The product actually
slid about 3.1% on the day as AMD sank by over 11.2%, pushing the
rest of the space lower thanks to its warning on sales.
(see more in the
Zacks
ETF Center
)
ADV MICRO DEV (AMD): Free Stock Analysis Report
CUMMINS INC (CMI): Free Stock Analysis Report
ISHARS-MSCI PER (EPU): ETF Research Reports
SPDR-SP SEMICON (XSD): ETF Research Reports
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