Oil's Rise Sends Energy ETFs Higher

Oil also played a part in the returns of some of the week's big winners — Russia and emerging Eastern Europe. (A new president in Russia also helped.) Market Vectors Russia (RSX), an ETF that primarily owns energy companies like Lukoil and Gazprom, gained 10.1% the last five trading sessions. This fund has returned 36.4% over the last year. The SPDR S&P Emerging Europe fund (GUR), which has 68% of its assets in Russia and the rest spread throughout countries like Czech Republic, Turkey, Hungary and Poland, increased 8.6% this week.

The iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 fund (FXI) dropped 2.7% Friday. The iPath MSCI India (INP) exchange-traded note decreased 7.7% during the previous week.

Van Eck announced trading off the Market Vectors Double Long Euro and Market Vectors Double Short Euro exchange-traded notes. These two funds allow investors to make leveraged and short bets against the direction of the euro/U.S. dollar exchange rate.

In Registration: ProShares has done well with leveraged and short ETFs that try to double the returns of a given index or post double the inverse returns of that same benchmark. Now, though, competing fund family Direxion is taking that idea a step further with ETFs that will try to triple the returns of their underlying index. The firm recently registered 36 ETFs with the SEC that will go long or short benchmarks that focus on Japan, real estate, home builders, midcaps and emerging markets, just to name a few. No word on when they will start trading.

And the Winner Is...: Clear Indexes announced the winner of its "Next Generation ETF Contest" that challenges students at selected schools to come up with a new fund idea in the hopes of winning $5,000. Two York University students came up with an idea for a global sports fund that focuses on the publicly-traded equities of holding companies that own professional athletic teams. The students also win an internship with Clear and a chance to see their idea turn into a viable fund.