Best & Worst ETF Areas Of Last Week

Last week was a volatile one for the stock market as Wall Street was caught between trade tensions and upbeat jobs data as well as solid holiday season buying. The S&P 500 lost 0.7%, the Nasdaq shed about 1.1% and the Dow Jones retreated about 1.3% in the week.

Best ETF Areas

Chile

iShares MSCI Chile Capped ETF (WA:ECH) added 8.1% last weekas Chile’s stock exchange logged its highest one-day gain in 11 years after lawmakers agreed on Dec 6 to hold a referendum on changing the country’s dictatorship-era constitution, giving in to protesters agitation over inequality and social injustice, per Reuters.

Oil & Energy

Crude oil prices gained last week as top producers at the OPEC meeting came up with much deeper output cuts for early next year. The OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, which includes Russiaagreed on Dec 6 to lower their joint oil production quota by an incremental 500,000 barrels per day during Q1 of 2020. The OPEC+ group had settled for a deal earlier this year to remove 1.2 million barrels per day from world markets (read: Why These ETFs Under $20 Seem Solid Picks for 2020).

SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services (NYSE:XES) ETF XES (up 6.7%), United States Oil Fund (NYSE:USO), LP USO (up 5.5%),Invesco DB Oil Fund (TSX:DBO) (up 5.3%), iPath Series B S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (ASX:OIL) (up 5.8%) and UBS ETRACS S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (ASX:OIL) (up 4.8%) are winners from last week.

Brazil

Analysts are betting big on Brazil now. The director of DoubleLine Capital's International Fixed Income team, “sees an opportunity in Brazil heading into 2020, even amid the latest tariff threat from President Donald Trump.”Luiz Ribeiro, manager of the Latin America Equities fund at asset manager DWS Group made Brazil his top investment pick, thanks to hopes of a tax reform, which could boost gains among domestic-focused equities. iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF EWZ added 3.8% last week.

Worst ETF Areas

Cannabis

Marijuana stocks have been under pressure of late owing to downbeat earnings from sector behemoths. However, shares of marijuana companies rose on Nov 21 after a U.S. congressional committee passed a legislation that would end the federal embargo on weed. Analysts are still doubtful about the near-term prospects of the space. The sponsors of the bill warned that the Senate was unlikely to approve it any time soon.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer believes that “companies need to close, funding needs to dry up, mergers must occur. Until then, these stocks are now sell-in-the-strength detritus” (read: Marijuana ETFs Bounce Back: Can the Rally Last?).

Amplify Seymour Cannabis ETF CNBS (down 6.9%), AdvisorShares Pure Cannabis ETF (LON:YOLO) (down 5.6%), The Cannabis ETF THCX (down 4.6%) and Cambria Cannabis ETF TOKE (down 3.9%) were among the ones that lost ground.

Greece

Global X MSCI Greece ETF GREK lost 3.4% (per xtf.com), probably due to overvaluation concerns. The fund added 41% this year versus 24.2% of the S&P 500.

Cloud Computing

WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund WCLD retreated 3.4% last week. The underlying BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index is an equally weighted Index, designed to measure the performance of emerging public companies focused on delivering cloud-based software to customers.

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