Weekend Edition: ETF Report Card for 2006

After a week where numerous articles and even the NYSE pointed out issues regarding ETF's, it was interesting to look to see which ETF's have held up the best this year and which have been hanging out in the outhouse.

YTD (year-to-date)

Even after some of the cooling, the old guard is still way up for the year.

iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI) YTD +27.6% and +0.06% in last 3 months.
What can you say, China is still the spot.........

streetTRACKS Gold Shares (GLD) YTD +22.45% and -2.9% in last 3 months; and iShares COMEX Gold Trust (IAU) YTD +22.29% and -2.9% in last 3 months; This was very surprising since gold has been getting hit.

streetTRACKS Wilshire REIT (RWR) a REIT ETF, YTD +18.4%, +6.3% in last 3 months;
Real Estate may not be as dead as we think.

Now for the loser so far this year. This will be depressing for those of you that love tech shares and those of you that love digital or virtual companies. That is pretty universal with chips, broadband, and Internet stocks stinking up the farm the worst.

The Internet HOLDRs (HHH) YTD -31.3%, -19.1% in last 3 months.

The Broadband HOLDRs (BDH) YTD -16.5%, -23.9% in last 3 months.

iShares Goldman Sachs Networking (IGN) YTD -15.3%, -24.9% in last 3 months.

Semiconductor HOLDRs (SMH) YTD -13.9%, -16.2% in last 3 months.

Please understand that these are some basic features we are going to start running from time to time. We are not trying to put any opinion regarding ETF's or sectors, but we want to point out some of the moves we see. Some of these are alarming. Also keep in mind that in mutual funds and sector investing that many of the top performers one year underperform the next, and vice versa. That is not a rule of course, but in good faith we have to at least remind about that small factoid.

Have a nice weekend. So long as your retirement account isn't all in chips, broadband or web stocks there is at least a shot at a nice weekend.