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Daily ETF Wrap-Up by Rob Wherry (Author Archive)
Health-Care ETFs Gain Amid Financials' Woes
Market Wrap-Up
Tuesday financial stocks once again were front and center as investors continued to fret over the prognosis for some of the sector's biggest players and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said during Capitol Hill testimony, "at present, accurately assessing and appropriately balancing the risks to the outlook for growth and inflation is a significant challenge for monetary policy makers."
Investors seemed skeptical of the government's plan to prop up ailing mortgage companies Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). Even a plan to curtail some short selling in these companies couldn't stop them from sliding in price. Fannie closed down 24.8%; Freddie dropped 23.8%.
Meanwhile, the market did get a bit of a shot in the arm from healthcare. Two big healthcare bellwethers — Genentech (DNA) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) — posted good second quarter numbers, sending their shares and others in the industry higher.
A drop in the price of a barrel of oil also helped stocks run higher. Crude dropped to the $139 level, down almost $7 a barrel.
That mixed bag of events had the market rallying and pulling back all session. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 93 points to 10,963. The fact that the broad market finished below the psychologically important 11,000 level says a lot about the dismal outlook many investors have about the overall investing environment.
Winners
Johnson & Johnson announced second quarter sales of $16.5 billion, a record amount, and profits of $3.3 billion. Those numbers were bolstered by overseas sales. The company's shares jumped 1.8%. Genentech saw its sales increased 9% to $2.4 billion, and its profits rise to $871 million, a 4% bump up. The results coming out of these closely watched health care companies had ripple effects across the sector.
Biotech HOLDRS (BBH), which has a major weighting in Genentech, saw its shares increase 3.8%. The SPDR S&P Biotech fund (XBI) moved up 2.9%.
Losers
The per-barrel price of crude oil dropped almost $7 to $137 over concerns a slowing U.S. economy would translate into diminished usage numbers. The United States Oil ETF (USO) dropped 4.5%. Its sister fund, United States Gasoline (UGA), decreased 4.9%.
Wednesday's Notebook
Earnings
Abbott, AMR Corp., Crown Holding, Datalink, Delta Airlines, EBay, Gannett, Kinder Morgan, Marshall & Ilsley, Northern Trust, Piper & Jaffray, St. Jude Medical, Wells Fargo, Yum! Brands
Economic Data
Consumer Price Index (8:30 a.m.), Treasury International Capital Flows (9 a.m.), Industrial Production (9:15 a.m.), Housing Market (1 p.m.)
Quick Take
A look at how the industry's most popular ETFs did on Tuesday.10 Largest ETFs | |||||
| Symbol | Net Assets | Price | 52 Week High | 52 Week Low | Volume |
77,056 | 121.01 | 156.39 | 122.81 | 489,829,220 | |
47,565 | 64.47 | 85.64 | 65.77 | 21,612,748 | |
27,269 | 126.75 | 165.39 | 117.49 | 35,429,321 | |
NA | 96.18 | 99.81 | 65.04 | 30,304,288 | |
16,710 | 121.62 | 156.65 | 123.02 | 8,810,932 | |
17,586 | 44.22 | 55.03 | 41.17 | 280,529,227 | |
14,092 | 52.99 | 63.64 | 52.79 | 5,218,626 | |
8,988 | 83.04 | 84.49 | 79.91 | 715,662 | |
10,808 | 60.65 | 77.66 | 61.51 | 2,936,738 | |
8,900 | 63.94 | 89.03 | 65 | 4,647,881 | |
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