Market Wrap-Up

Traders will head home this weekend having put a historic five trading sessions in the rearview mirror. It started Monday with news that Lehman Brothers (LEH) was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch (MER) was being swallowed up by Bank of America (BAC). It continued with a dramatic $85 billion government bailout of insurance giant AIG (AIG) and concluded Friday with the announcement of a Resolution Trust Corporation-type entity that will probably wind up buying a big chunk of the toxic assets that are sitting on the balance sheets of the country's biggest financial institutions.

The stock market has been down for most of the week until late Thursday when the news of the RTC entity leaked onto the airwaves. The broad market gained 409 points on Thursday, mostly during the last hour of trading, and gained another 369 on Friday. Those two upticks essentially brought the market even with where it started the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11,388.

So the pop in the stock market can also be attributed to more stringent rules surrounding short selling. No doubt, some traders were forced to unwind those trades long before they had planned. The rules will be in place for a few months.

Meanwhile, oil regained some of the ground it lost the last four weeks. The price for a barrel of oil crossed over the $100 mark and closed at $104, up over $6 for the session.

Winners

The idea of an RTC-type entity was received as good news for financial stocks. SPDR KBW Capital Market (KCE), and ETF that tracks an index of big Wall Street firms, jumped 13.3% Friday. As for the week, the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Regional Banks ETF (IAT) and the SPDR KBW Regional Banking fund (KRE) increased 18.4% and 23.5%, respectively.

Losers

It was a bad day to be on the wrong side of the financial services trade, both here and abroad. Overnight, central banks in key markets like Russia and China pumped billions of dollars into their financial systems. According to Bloomberg, some emerging markets recorded their biggest gains in 20 years. However, if you hadn't anticipated that move you are seeing red. The ProShares UltraShort FTSE/Xinhua UltraShort China 25 (FXP) lost 24.5% Friday, and lost 29.4% on the week.

This Week's Industry Headlines

Launching Pad
Invesco PowerShares announced the trading of six new ETFs that focus on commodities and certain sectors. Four of the funds will track indexes based on agriculture, coal, steel and precious metals, respectively. The remaining two offerings are based on the transportation and biotech industries.

New Home
Vanguard announced that 34 of its ETFs will begin trading on the NYSE Arca platform.

Data Mining
Barclays reported that on Monday ETFs accounted for 40% of all equity dollar volume transactions, up from a typical 28% daily average. The company says that translated into $178 billion worth of ETFs trading hands, with $32 billion carrying the iShares brand. Financial ETFs were particularly popular. They traded three times the daily average of the previous six months.

Next Week's Notebook

Earnings & Conference Calls

Monday: 3Com, AutoZone, CarMax
Tuesday: H.B. Fuller, Lennar, Qualstar, Worthington
Wednesday: Bed, bath & Beyond, Nike, Paychex
Thursday: Accenture, Analogic, Diamond Foods, Discovery Financial, McCormick, Research in Motion, Rite Aid, Scholastic, Texas Industries, Vail Resorts
Friday: American Greetings, Jabil Circuit, KB Home

Economic Data

Tuesday:
7:45a.m. Chain Store Sales
8:55a.m. Retail Sales
10:00a.m. Sept. Richmond Fed. Mfg. Survey

Wednesday
10:00a.m. Aug. Existing Home Sales

Thursday
8:30a.m. Initial Jobless Claims
8:30a.m. Aug. Durable Goods Orders
10:00a.m. Aug. New Home Sales
10:00a.m. Business Barometer

Friday
8:30a.m. 2Q Final GDP
8:30a.m. 2Q Revised Corporate Profits
10:00a.m. End-Sep Reuters/Univ. Mich. Sentiment Index

Quick Take

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