Last week witnessed a tug-of-war between bulls and bears. While upbeat economic data points for the month of May indicated pent-up consumer demand, new U.S. cases and hospitalizations remained a cause of concerns for investors, with Texas, Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma reporting a rise in infections. Still, the government is moving ahead with reopening plans to support economic growth.

SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY Quick QuoteSPY - Free Report) , SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA Quick QuoteDIA - Free Report) and Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ Quick QuoteQQQ - Free Report) added about 1.9%, 1.04% and 22.4%, respectively (as of Jun 19, 2020). Against this backdrop, below we highlight a few leveraged ETF areas that shot up last week.

Pharma & Biotech

The global pharma and biotech companies are busy formulating treatments and vaccines for the virus, making the sector most lucrative. The U.S. government is assisting efforts from companies including Moderna (MRNA) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), as well as London-based AstraZeneca Plc (AZN) and France’s Sanofi (SNY).

Talks are rife that the White House and FDA will okay approval of one or two COVID-19 vaccines to help bolster Donald Trump’s chances before the U.S. presidential election in November, while scientists expect it around early 2021.

Promising vaccine data boosted Chinese pharma stocks last week. Wall Street analysts expect more companies entering the clinical trial phase I in the coming weeks. Overall,  ProShares Ultra Nasdaq Biotechnology (BIB Quick QuoteBIB - Free Report) (up 15.3%) and Direxion Daily Pharmaceutical & Medical Bull 3X Shares ETF (PILL Quick QuotePILL - Free Report) (up 14.9%) and Direxion Daily Healthcare Bull 3X Shares (CURE Quick QuoteCURE - Free Report) gained materially last week.

Internet

Internet stocks have all the more reason to surge now as these have less to do with human contact. The coronavirus scare favored the online retailing industry as lockdowns and quarantines boosted demand for online shopping and other kinds of Internet activities.  

No wonder,Direxion Daily CSI China Internet Bull 2X Shares (CWEB Quick QuoteCWEB - Free Report) (up 17.62%), Direxion Daily Dow Jones Internet Bull 3X Shares WEBL (up 13.4%) and MicroSectors FANG+ Index 3X Leveraged ETN (up 11.4%) were the winners past week.

Nasdaq

Tech-heavy Nasdaq remained strong on fears of a second wave of coronavirus that charged up stay-at-home tech stocks. Moreover, big tech companies are now eyeing the virus-testing & tracing business (read: Big Techs Making the Most of Medical Emergency: ETFs to Win). 

Verily Life Sciences, a sister company of Google, is now launching a health screening and analytics service for businesses trying to safely reopen during the pandemic. Microsoft (MSFT Quick QuoteMSFT - Free Report) recently stated that it has expanded its network and data center capacity to meet growing demand for cloud services amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ Quick QuoteTQQQ - Free Report) (up 10.75%), Direxion Daily Technology Bull 3X Shares (TECL Quick QuoteTECL - Free Report) (up 8.95%) and MicroSectors FANG+ Index 2X Leveraged ETN (FNGO Quick QuoteFNGO - Free Report) (up 7.8%) gained the maximum in this segment.

Consumer Staples

The sector has been a winner during the coronavirus outbreak. With a second wave showing signs of hitting some U.S. states massively, risk-off trade sentiments started prevailing in Wall Street. Naturally, the safe and non-cyclical sector consumer staples surged last week. Direxion Daily Consumer Staples Bull 3X Shares ETF NEED added 8.5% last week.

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