For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – May 23, 2018 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include First Trust Nasdaq Oil & Gas ETF (FTXN Quick QuoteFTXN - Free Report) , PowerShares S&P SmallCap Energy Fund (PSCE Quick QuotePSCE - Free Report) , SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP Quick QuoteXOP - Free Report) , iShares U.S. Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (IEO Quick QuoteIEO - Free Report) and PowerShares Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production Portfolio (PXE Quick QuotePXE - Free Report) .

Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:

Tap Oil with the Best ETFs, Year to Date

Oil price has been on a solid run in the past couple of months with Brent hovering near $80 per barrel, the highest since 2014, and U.S. crude trading above $72 per barrel. The rally has been driven by several factors that point to a rebalancing of the oil market and increase in investors’ optimism.

In particular, Iran and Venezuela are playing an important role in driving oil price higher. This is especially true as Donald Trump finally withdrew from the Obama-era 2015 nuclear deal and vowed to re-impose all the powerful economic sanctions against the OPEC nation within the deal as well as bring new ones. Since Iran is OPEC's third-largest oil producer and exports about 2.5 million barrels a day, renewed sanctions would reduce Iranian oil exports, further tightening global supplies and pushing oil prices higher (read: ETFs & Stocks in Focus as Trump Reimposes Sanction on Iran).

The potential U.S. sanctions on Venezuela after the second six-year term victory of President Nicolás Maduro would further curtail oil output from the country. Output of the OPEC-member has already been halved since 2005 to below 2 million barrels per day due to an economic crisis. All these are further tightening excess global supplies.

The historic output cut deal, wherein OPEC, Russia and other producers have agreed to curb production by 1.8 million barrels per day is already paying off. The group started curtailing output in January last year and is likely to continue through 2018. Further, oil inventories in the world’s richest nations have now fallen 1 million barrels below the five-year average, the level targeted by the OPEC and its partners, as the group restrains crude output for a second year.

Coming to demand side, accelerating economic growth across the world has been raising demand for the commodity but the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that it would likely moderate as crude nears $80 per barrel. The agency cut its forecast for global demand growth to 1.4 million barrels per day for 2018, from a previous estimate of 1.5 million barrels per day.

The bullish trend is likely to continue at least in the short term. Given this, investors might want to tap the space with the top-performing energy ETFs of this year. For them, we have highlighted five funds that are poised to perform well, should oil prices rise.

First Trust Nasdaq Oil & Gas ETF

This fund follows the Nasdaq US Smart Oil & Gas Index, which measures the performance of the most liquid oil and gas securities from the NASDAQ US Benchmark Index screened through volatility, value and growth.

Zacks Rank: #3 (Hold)

AUM: $11.5 million

Expense Ratio: 0.60%

YTD Return: 21.5%

PowerShares S&P SmallCap Energy Fund

This fund offers exposure to the small-cap segment of the energy sector by tracking the S&P Small Cap 600 Capped Energy Index (read: 5 Small-Cap ETFs & Stocks Crushing Russell 2000).

Zacks Rank: #3

AUM: $78.7 million

Expense Ratio: 0.29%

YTD Return: 20.3%

SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF

This fund provides exposure to the oil and gas exploration companies by tracking the S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Select Industry Index.

Zacks Rank: #3

AUM: $3.5 billion

Expense Ratio: 0.35%

YTD Return: 19.1%

iShares U.S. Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF

This product offers exposure to U.S. companies that are engaged in the exploration, production, and distribution of oil and gas and follows the Dow Jones U.S. Select Oil Exploration & Production Index (read: Top Performing Energy ETFs of 2018).

Zacks Rank: #3

AUM: $513 million

Expense Ratio: 0.44%

YTD Return: 19.1%

PowerShares Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production Portfolio

This product follows the Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production Intellidex Index, which thoroughly evaluates companies based on a variety of investment merit criteria, including price momentum, earnings momentum, quality, management action and value.

Zacks Rank: #3

AUM: $59.5 million

Expense Ratio: 0.80%

YTD Return: 18.4%

Want key ETF info delivered straight to your inbox?

Zacks’ free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing ETFs, each week. Get it free >>

Media Contact

Zacks Investment Research

800-767-3771 ext. 9339

support@zacks.com                                      

http://www.zacks.com                                                   

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit http://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.