Various factors led to a few surprises and disappointments in the ETF world on Thursday, with some funds seeing jumps of up to 2 percent, while others fell by nearly 5 percent, according to an article on The Street.
Street contributor Don Dion reflected on the best- and worst-performing ETF of Thursday.
Those highlighted in the winning category and their daily returns include:
Solar stocks are getting crushed and many are now trading like penny stocks, but could this sharp sell-off be a bit overdone?
On Monday, Germany made headlines by announcing it will shutter all its nuclear reactors by 2022. But is it a game-changer for renewable energy?
Renewable energy ETFs were all the hype in the summer of 2008; crude oil prices topped $140 a barrel and investors searched for alternatives. The hype didn’t last, however. Crude prices crashed to the mid-$30s during the financial crisis later that year. The two largest green energy ETFs at the time, the PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (NYSE Arca: PBW) and the Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy ETF (NYSE Arca: GEX), both plummeted over 70 percent in share price. PBW’s assets under management (AUM) also fell, from $1.5 billion to under $500 million, while GEX’s AUM fell from $300 million to under $32 million.
First Trust’s plans outlined in a recent filing to market an ETF that would track smart-phone-related companies bring back into focus a basic question: Is an investment vehicle this specific in its focus genius or folly?