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5 Best-Performing ETFs of Last Week

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Wall Street was moderately upbeat last week with the S&P 500 (0.79%), the Dow Jones (up 1.22%) and the Nasdaq Composite (up 0.1%) gaining moderately while the Russell 2000 (down 0.4%) retreated. The benchmark treasury yield jumped to 1.61% on October 8 from 1.49% on October 4. The rising rate worries amid the Fed taper talks led to the upsurge in bond yields. Oil prices continued its uptrend in the week with United States Oil Fund, LP (USO - Free Report) adding about 4.1%.

Apart from this, the jobs data for the month of September came in downbeat. The non-farm payrolls rose by just 194,000 in September versus the 500,000 expected. While the unemployment rate dropped more than expected to 4.8%, the labor force participation rate also declined to 61.6% from 61.7% in August. Average hourly earnings also grew faster to reach a 4.6% year-over-year rate, or the fastest since February.

Against this backdrop, below we highlight a few ETFs that gained massively last week.

ETFs in Focus

Vaneck Unconventional Oil & Gas ETF – Up 8.24%

Oil price has been on a tear with Brent hitting the highest level since October 2018 while WTI jumped to $80 per barrel — the highest since 2014. The rally has been driven by supply disruptions and storage drawdowns as well as growing demand with the easing of pandemic restrictions.

KraneShares Trust CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB - Free Report) – Up 8.21%

Chinese technology stocks surged lately after many weeks of sell-off. Investors used the buy-the-dip strategy for the Chinese tech stocks.  J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management CEO Mary Erdoes told CNBC’s Delivering Alpha that Chinese stocks are “on sale.”

Alps ETF Trust Sprott Junior Gold (SGDJ - Free Report) – Up 8.20%

The downbeat U.S. jobs data probably have weighed on the faster-than-expected chances of a Fed QE taper. This has cut some strength in the greenback, favored gold investing as well as boosted gold mining stocks.  

iPatha.B Tin Subindex TR ETN – Up 7.87%

Tin prices have been hovering around a record high on supply crunch. Prices for the metal have been powered by supply disruptions in key producing countries and surging demand for electronics, where the metal is used for soldering to connect components, according to a mining.com article. The global tin market deficit is expected to increase to 12,700 tonnes in 2022 from 10,200 tonnes this year, International Tin Association (ITA) predicted in June, as quoted on mining.com.

Physical Palladium ETF (PALL - Free Report) – Up 7.74%

September was one of the worst months forpalladium in a decade. The new-car shortage (thanks to the scarcity of semiconductors) weighed on palladium prices. However, buy-the-dip strategy and the broad-based rally in the precious metals on Oct 7 boosted the fund last week. The downbeat jobs data probably have shifted the investors’ bet for a rate hike backward. This, in turn, cut some strength from the greenback and boosted the commodities’ price as the latter is priced in the U.S. dollar.

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