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Weekly ProShares Review -- foreign stocks grab investor interest

Some interesting things going on with ProShares ETFs this past week.

Every now and then for the last few weeks I have been presenting a list of the ProShares ETFs that have exhibited the strongest performance over the course of the last week or have registered the biggest increase in volume.  Since these ETFs are primarily short-term trading vehicles and, as such, can be viewed as indicators of short-term sentiment, looking at the leaders among them can paint a picture of those areas of the market in which short-term investors are currently most interested.

Looking back over the course of the previous week, the five ETFs with the biggest gains were:

Symbol Fund Name Group Objective Percent Change - Price Percent Change -  Avg Volume
EFO Ultra MSCI EAFE Ultra 200% of the underlying 12.7% 176.8%
EET Ultra MSCI Emerging Markets Ultra 200% of the underlying 11.5% 16.1%
XPP Ultra FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Ultra 200% of the underlying 10.9% 22.4%
UPRO UltraPro S&P500 Ultra 300% of the underlying 10.2% -44.5%
UKF Ultra Russell1000 Growth Ultra 200% of the underlying 10.0% 15.4%

The two ETFs with the biggest increase in volume (other than EFO) were:

Symbol Fund Name Group Objective Percent Change - Price Percent Change - Avg Volume
JPX UltraShort MSCI Pacific ex-Japan Short 200% of the Inverse -10.3% 310.9%
YCL Ultra Yen Ultra 200% of the underlying -1.4% 107.8%

Interestingly, the volume for all the other ProShares ETFs declined or was barely up at all.

Conclusion --

The overriding theme this week seems to be that, after suffering serious declines (China sinking to bear market lows, for example), foreign stocks are back in favor. Surprisingly, that includes European stocks which make make up a large part of the EAFE index which was our top performer. The biggest volume play was to bail out of the UltraShort MSCI Pacific ex-Japan ETF.

U.S. markets rallied last week but short-term traders seem more interested in foreign stocks. Is this a vote of confidence for improvement in the global economy? At least this week, the double dip seems like a figment of the perma-bear imagination.
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Anonymous said…
EEM shows some stength.since we have been helping create job over there
July 19, 2010 at 11:21:00 AM EDT

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