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Top-Performing ETF Areas of Last Week

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Wall Street was downbeat last week, with losses seen in all major indexes. The S&P 500 recorded its longest weekly losing streak since the dot-com bubble burst, per a Yahoo Finance article. The S&P 500 (down 3.1%), the Dow Jones (down 2.90%), the Nasdaq Composite (down 3.8%) and the Russel 2000 (down 1.1%) all shed gains.

Concerns that tighter monetary policies to tame surging inflation will slow down global economic growth have weighed on the risk sentiment and driven investors toward the safe-haven assets like U.S. treasuries. iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT - Free Report) was up 2.3% past week.

Rising greenback weighed on corporate profits. Companies pointing to currency headwinds in their latest earnings reports include Coca-Cola Co, Procter & Gamble and Philip Morris International Inc. Analysts cut their overall forecast for S&P 500 second-quarter profit growth to 5.6% from 6.8% at the start of April owing to the current headwinds, per a Reuters article.

As far as benchmark U.S. treasury yields are concerned, the week started with a 2.88% yield, hit a high of 2.98% and ended at 2.78%. This happened because investors sought bonds’ safety amid renewed recessionary concerns. And due to a decline in the long-term bond yields, TLT gained last week. Short-term treasury ETFs like 1-3 Month T-Bill Barclays Capital SPDR (BIL - Free Report) also advanced last week.

Overall, like past few weeks, commodities gained last week too due to the Russia-Ukraine war. Russia is energy-rich. Both countries involved in the war are exporters of agricultural commodities. Hence, war-induced supply chain woes led to the price rally in the commodities market.

Against this backdrop, below we highlight a few winning ETF areas of last week.

Natural Gas

iPath.B Natural Gas Subindex ETN – Up 7.4%          

US Natural Gas Fund (UNG) – Up 5.6%

US 12 Month Natural Gas (UNL) – Up 5.3%

Energy

Global Energy Producers iShares MSCI ETF (FILL - Free Report) – Up 2.6%

Global Energy iShares ETF (IXC) – Up 1.9%

Energy ETF Vanguard (VDE) – Up 1.4%

US Brent Oil (BNO - Free Report) – Up 1.0%

Agriculture        

Teucrium Soybean (SOYB - Free Report) – Up 1.9%

Teucrium Agricultural(TAGS) – Up 1.3%

Rogers Agriculture ETN Elements (RJA) – Up 0.2%

Short-Term Treasury Bond ETFs

SPDR 1-3 Month T-Bill Barclays Capital (BIL - Free Report) – Up 0.01%

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