March was a pretty rough month for Wall Street due to the wide volatile swings stocks took as the coronavirus infected the market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA) and the S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY) both recorded their worst first quarter performance in history, down 23% and 20% respectively. Investors have begun to look for signs of an economic restart as key industries and supply chains extend their shutdowns.
Semiconductors like VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SMH) and iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SOXX) have both declined heavily during the first quarter as many companies have halted productions around the world. Investors are looking for a rebound from chips and semis because that will be one of the first signs of market recovery due to their prevalence across diverse number of supply chains.
Oil is also an indicator of the boarder economy, due to the commodity's importance in trade. Typically, investors use the popular United States Oil Fund (NYSE: USO) to bet on short-term prices; market participants will buy oil during price dips and sell oil during rallies. But a Bloomberg report cautioned that this regular market move will led to a lot of investors getting burned by the ETF. The report found that around $1.8 billion flowed into USO over the last three weeks, which is the biggest consecutive weekly inflows for the fund on record. With oversupply and lower demand of the commodity around the global, the U.S. benchmark is now more than 60% lower since January. This is not the time to be pouring more money into the fund, for the bottom has yet to be reached.
Despite the rough market climate, the gaming industry and its related Exchange-Traded Funds have been outperforming the market in the first quarter. This relative strength has been brought on by a few measures: much of the world's population in under some type of lockdown and video games being a cheaper form of entertainment. VanEck's Gaming and Esports ETF (NASDAQ: ESPO) is currently up more than 2% this week and has grown over 18% for the year so far. ETFMG Video Game Tech ETF (NYSE: GAMR) has also posted gains for the week and is only down about 7% for the quarter, still outperforming the broader market. Other outperformers include Global X Video Games & Esports ETF (NASDAQ: HERO) and Roundhill BITKRAFT Esports & Digital Entertainment ETF (NYSE: NERD).