GE Drags Down Industrial ETFs

As for the week, the big winner was black gold. A unexpected decrease in crude inventories announced in the middle of the week shot oil past $112 per barrel, a record price for the commodity. It eventually settled back down to $110. But that pop helped the MacroShares Oil Up ETF (UCR) gain 5.1% in heavy trading.

As for the week, it wasn't a good one for the housing industry. Home builders had been quietly posting some decent numbers in 2008 after last year's historic downturn. But fresh data on weak pending home sales and a new round of analyst downgrades of mortgage companies helped put a temporary stop to the turnaround. The iShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB) lost 10%. SPDR S&P Homebuilders (XHB) dropped 8.9%

Northern Trust announced its inaugural move into the ETF industry. It launched two funds under its NETS brand that track the largest 200 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange and the largest 100 that primarily trade on the London Stock Exchange.

Victoria Bay Asset Management announced the beginning of trading of its United States Heating Oil ETF. The fund will try to match the percentage change in the price of heating oil futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Victoria Bay also manages popular ETFs based on oil and natural gas.

In Registration: Barclays recently filed with the SEC to launch several new funds, including ones that focus on Eastern Europe, China, nuclear energy and the timber industry. It also filed for an emerging markets ETF which, says Index Universe, will most likely be the first offering to focus on emerging markets infrastructure plays.

New Numbers: State Street Global Advisors released its monthly snapshot of the ETF industry Wednesday. As of March 31, there were 23 companies managing 643 ETFs that hold $572 billion. Ten new ETFs were launched in March.

Tuesday: BOK Financial, CSX, East West Bancorp, Forest Laboratories, Infosys, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Linear Technology, M&T Bank Corp., Marshall & IIsley, Northern Trust, Regions Financial, Seagate Technology, State Street, U.S. Bancorp, Washington Mutual

Wednesday: Abbott, Altera, Astoria Financial, Datalink, eBay, Gilead Sciences, Illinois Tool, IBM, JPMorgan, Johnson Controls, Leggett & Platt, piper Jaffray, St. Jude, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo

Thursday: AMD, Amdocs, American Greetings, Ameritrade, Bank of New York Mellon, Baxter Int'l, BB&T, Briggs & Stratton, Check Pointe, CIT, Continental, Cypress Semiconductor, Danaher, E*Trade, Evergreen Solar, Fairchild Semiconductor, First Financial Bankshares, Google, Great Southern, Harley-Davidson, IMS Health, Intuitive Surgical, KeyCorp, Marriott, Nokia, Pfizer, Prudential, Southwest, Stryker, Textron

Friday: Caterpillar, Citigroup, Honeywell, Manpower, Mohawk, Schlumberger, Wilmington Trust, Xerox

Tuesday: Chain Store Sales (7:45 a.m.), Producer Price Index (8:30 a.m.), N.Y. Fed Manufacturing (8:30 a.m.), NAHB Housing Market Index (1 p.m.), Consumer Confidence (5 p.m.)

Wednesday: Mortgage Refinancing (7 a.m.), Consumer Price Index (8:30 a.m.), Housing Starts (8:30 a.m.), Industrial Production (8:30 a.m.), Beige Book (2 p.m.)

Thursday: Initial Jobless Claims (8:30 a.m.), Leading Indicators (10 a.m.), Philadelphia Fed Business Index (10 a.m.), Business Barometer (10 a.m.)