As the week reaches the half way point there is lots of great performing ETF's to report on. Even with the sea saw action in the oil markets, other sectors are making good progress. As for the broad market index ETF's, well they are performing nicely too. The SPY is showing just over 1% gain for the week. Add that to last week's strong rally and the (NYSE: SPY) is now only down 5.67% for the year. The Nasdaq 100 ETF (NASDAQ: QQQ) isn't doing as well for the year (down 9.67%) but is performing in concert with the S&P this week so far. The Russell 2000 ETF (NYSE: IWM) continues to be the weakest of all. This week it is trying to continue the small bounce it had last week but is still down over 10% for the year. By far the best performer so far this week is the Gold Mining ETF (NYSE: GDX). Up almost 10% for the week, there seems to be no stopping the gold miners. The whole year has gone very well for gold and the miners. The GDX is now up almost 38% for 2016 trading comfortably off the multiple lows it made last year. Some of the individual stocks in this ETF such as Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM) and Barrick Gold Corp (NYSE: ABX) stand out as over performers.
Elsewhere, retail is having a nice week as well. The popular Retail ETF (NYSE: XRT) is continuing last week's rally, posting a 3% gain for the week so far. With positive moves from Macy's (NYSE: M) and Home Depot (NYSE: HD) the XRT finds itself trying to break through a long term down trend.
One sector that seems to be standing out lately is the Homebuilding ETF (NYSE: XHB) has seen a consistent move off the lows set just last week. The popular ETF is up 3.5% for the week so far on average volume. Home builders are still down over 10% for the year but the recent strength seems to have gained the attention of the short term traders. One of the better performers in the ETF is Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL) which recently released earnings and is up over 5% for the week.
Lastly we will mention volatility. With the recent market rally in the short term volatility products have taken a hit. The Volatility ETF (NYSE: VXX) has pulled back this week losing 7.6%. This is common during market rallies as the fear level has decreased in the short term.