A Downturn Can't Stop Some ETFs From Popping

Market Wrap-Up

After starting the week on an up note, the stock market ended the recent five trading sessions with a big thud. Investors got spooked Thursday and Friday by gloomy Congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, weak economic data that stirred recession fears and disappointing earnings from prominent firms like AIG (AIG) and Dell (DELL). Oil and gold recorded all-time highs as investors looked for safe havens among all the dismal news. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the day down 324 points to 12,258. For the week it fell almost 23 points.

Winners

Oil went over $103 a barrel and gold touched $974 an ounce. Both were all-time-high price levels. That translated into big gains for commodity ETFs. On Friday, the iPath Dow Jones-AIG Nickel exchange-traded note (JJN) increased 1.6%. Two of the week's biggest movers were the iShares Silver (SLV) and PowerShares DB Silver (DBS) ETFs. They moved 9.1% and 9.3%, respectively. Oil and gold ETFs also jumped more than 3% each.

Losers

After a brief rally earlier in the week, poor economic growth data and dismal earnings results from Toll Brothers (TOL) had investors fleeing home-builder stocks before the weekend. The iShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB) lost 7.1% Friday. One of the week's big losers were bank stocks. Bernanke cautioned the recent subprime and credit crises could cause some banks to fail. Analysts also downgraded broker-dealer stocks on fears that another round of write-downs could be coming. The Regional Bank HOLDRS (RKH) and SPDR KBW Bank (KBE) ETFs lost 6.5% and 6.4%, respectively.