The markets start the week with a bang and the market ETF's all post over 2% gains. With positive gains across the board this week we thought we would start at the top of the market, and then move into individual sector ETF's. The Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ ) has had the best performance this week gaining over 3% on Tuesday alone. Technical traders note that the move caused a break of two important resistance areas and volume was above average. The S&P 500 ETF (SPY ) has posted a nice 3% gain on the week as it heads towards the $200 number. Believe it or not the SPY is now only down 2.83% for the year. This leads us to the Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) which has been sneakily getting stronger in recent weeks. The IWM boasts the best weekly gain for market ETFs as it is up 4.27%. Technical traders have been talking about the room to run to the next resistance of $107 in the short term.
Moving to the Financial ETF (XLF ) which has had a nice 4.16% gain on the week on the heels of strong investment banking performance. News from Citigroup (C ), and strong performance from Goldman Sachs (GS ) have helped the financial sector this week.
Retail (XRT ) continues to be on a tear this week as well as this year. The economically sensitive sector has seen little struggles this week as it is up 4.41%. Year to date retail continues to outperform the markets, leading the way with a 1.78% gain for 2016.
Lastly, it wouldn't be right to skip oil. The US oil fund (USO ) continues to find short term support and is positive by 7.90% this week. This has helped the exploration companies ETF (XOP ) which also has a nice gain of 6.78%. The Oil Service ETF (AMEX: OIH) has a 4.46% gain on the week but more importantly traders will note that it has now broken above a multi-month range and buy side volume is increasing.