The first month of 2021 was pretty volatile. While stocks were at their all-time highs in first part of January on optimism over more stimulus from Washington, the rising coronavirus cases and some downbeat economic data points as well as the retail trading frenzy in some specific stocks in the month-end disbalanced the market momentum finally.
Overall, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite added about 0.5% and 4% past month, respectively, and the Dow Jones lost about 1.3%. However, small caps were still a winner as the Russell 2000 ETF IWM gained 4.8% past month.
Against this backdrop, below we highlight a few ETF areas that are trading around one-month high level.
Silver Miners
Silver has been on a tear lately with its price climbing to $30 per ounce for the first time since 2013 in a Reddit-fueled euphoria. After GameStop (NYSE:GME) mania, Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum declared silver as the biggest short last week, encouraging traders to pile into the metal.
The social media, including thousands of Reddit posts and hundreds of YouTube videos, made calls to buy the metal causing a huge rally in the metal prices from late January. This is the reason why silver miners gained materially (read: Silver Spikes to 8-Year High of $30: ETFs to Ride the Rally).
Additionally, hopes for faster global economic recovery in the post-pandemic world will likely boost manufacturing and industrial activities. Notably, silver is used in a wide range of industrial applications. About half of the metal’s total demand comes from industrial applications. Notably, industrial demand and activity have been in fine fettle the United States.
Purefunds ISE Junior Silver ETF SILJ – Up 14.5% Past Month
Global Silver Miners iShares MSCI ETF SLVP – Up 12.3%
Global-X Silver Miners ETF (SIL) – Up 12.1%
Natural Gas
Natural gas prices surged on forecast of cold weather the Northeastern part of the United States. Notably, natural gas prices normally gain in the winter season due to the higher need for heating demand.
iPath.B Natural Gas Subindex ETN GAZ – Up 10.4%
US Natural Gas Fund (UNG) – Up 9.7%
Biotech
The optimism over vaccine rollout from more biotech companies has been providing an upside to biotech companies. Several biotech companies came up with vaccine news lately with Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) recently announcing very encouraging updates on its protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate NVX-CoV2373. Per management, the vaccine candidate met the primary endpoint, delivering an efficacy of 89.3%, in its phase 3 clinical trial conducted in the United Kingdom.
ETFMG Treatments Testing and Advancements ETF GERM – Up 6.3%
S&P Biotech SPDR (XBI) – Up 4.4%
Dynamic Biotechnology & Genome Invesco ETF (PBE) – Up 3.7%
3D Printing
The growing shift toward automated, hyper-connected, hyper-efficient and — in some cases — decentralized factories, enabled by technological breakthrough has boosted the fund.
3D Printing ETF (PRNT) – Up 4.4%
Data Center REIT ETFs
A stupendous tech rally has been aiding the data center REITs in recent times. Data center REITs own and manage facilities that aid customers to safely store data. These REITs provide continued power supplies, air-cooled chillers and physical security.
Notably, public cloud providers, such as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) are investing big in data centers. With cloud computing gaining prominence steadily, demand growth for data centers would be steady as would be for these REITs.
Global X Data Center Reits & Digital Infrastructure ETF VPN – Up 3.8%
Pacer Benchmark & Infrastructure Real Estate ETF (SRVR) – Up 2.7%
Commodities
Commodities have been trending higher lately. Easy money policy, subdued strength of the greenback and fast revival from the pandemic-led slowdown should boost commodities now.
iPath Commodity Index TR ETN DJP – Up 2.2%
Commodity Broad Strategy No K-1 ETF (COMB) – Up 1.9%
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iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM): ETF Research Reports
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