Market Wrap-Up

There was plenty for investors to contemplate Tuesday. Oil flirted with record highs once again. Retail sales dropped for the second straight month, stoking recession fears.

Wal-Mart

Hewlett-Packard's

EDS

Winners

Crude oil momentarily jumped back over $126 per barrel before closing just under that mark. Heating oil rose right along with that commodity as traders fretted over whether refiners were keeping up with demand. The

United States Heating Oil ETF

United States Oil

But alternative energy also enjoyed its day in the sun Tuesday. JA Solar Holdings saw its first-quarter revenues and profit soar more than 200% each from the same time period last year. Canadian Solar saw its revenue increase to $171 million from $17.5 million in the first quarter of 2007. Claymore/Mac Global Solar Energy increased 3.3%.

Losers

Reports that India's plan to compensate energy companies for lower fuel costs might short-change those firms sent the

PowerShares India ETF

As the U.S. dollar rose against foreign currencies Tuesday, investors sold off gold positions. The StreetTracks Gold ETF lost 1.8%.

Tuesday's Industry Headlines

Launching Pad

: State Street Global Advisors announced two new SPDR exchange-traded funds will begin trading on the American Stock Exchange today. The SPDR Dow Jones Wilshire Global Real Estate ETF will track an index of more than 240 commercial and real estate companies in 23 countries. The SPDR S&P International Mid Cap ETF will track 850 companies with market capitalizations between $2 billion and $5 billion in 25 developed countries outside the U.S. The ETFs will charge 0.50% and 0.45%, respectively, in annual fees.

Growth Story? Now that the dust has settled on the first quarter, Paul Mazzilli, an ETF analyst with Morgan Stanley, has put some numbers together to wrap up the last 12 weeks. There were 25 new listings in the U.S. during the first quarter vs. 95 during the same time period in 2007. In addition, 11 funds were liquidated. That data may suggest that the industry is softening. But asset inflows are still strong.

Wednesday's Notebook

Earnings

Agilent Technologies, ArcelorMittal, Comstock Homebuilding, Deere & Company, Freddie Mac, Jack in the Box, Macy's, Sina Corp, Sony, Stanley, Steak N' Shake

Economic Data
Consumer Price Index (8:30 a.m.), CPI ex-food and energy (8:30 a.m.)

Quick Take

A look at how the industry's most popular ETFs did on Friday.