ETF Trading Report: Sweden, Health Care ETFs in Focus - ETF News And Commentary

Markets kept up their winning streak in Tuesday’s session as quality earnings reports helped to buoy equities once again. The Dow rose by 0.4%, the S&P 500 added half a percent to finish over 1,400, while the Nasdaq gained 0.9% in the solid session.

In terms of sectors, basic materials were a clear winner in Tuesday trading, while consumer staples and health care again led on the downside. Investors also saw strength in a number of banking and technology firms, helping to push close to 60% of the market over their SMA 200 levels.

Thanks to this additional day of solid equity performance, investors fled bonds in droves, pushing yields up on a number of ‘safe haven’ government debt options while the dollar remained flat against a variety of global currencies. Meanwhile, commodities continued to rise, as metals and energy led on the upside, but softs and grains struggled (also see Forget Petrobras with These Brazil ETFs).

ETF trading was once again light, with many top products seeing volume levels well below their averages. However, investors did see an outsized level of interest in a number of sector funds, bond ETFs, and a few international products as well during Tuesday’s session.

In particular, investors saw another big day for the iShares MSCI Sweden Index Fund (EWD). This product usually does about 205,000 shares in a normal day although volume today came in at 891,000 shares (read Three Resilient European ETFs).

This boost in volume was far more than what other Nordic countries saw on the day, although many others did see more volume than usual as well. Block trading did dominate the early part of the session, while the fund is now at a three month high although it did finish pretty much flat for the day.

It is also worth noting that the fund has seen almost $23 million more in AUM over the past month which could be another reason for the bump up in volume over the past few weeks.

Another fund which was more popular than usual was in the health care space, specifically with the ProShares Ultra Health Care ETF (RXL). This leveraged long fund usually does just about 3,400 shares in volume in a normal day but saw today’s trading reach 46,000 shares (read Health Care ETFs & The Fate of Obamacare).

This boost in volume wasn’t just in the leveraged space either, as a number of other health care ETFs traded more shares than usual during the session. However, none saw the sheer volume magnitude increase that RXL saw, although it should noted that a number of other funds saw volumes at least 5x normal, even though it was pretty much a flat day in the broad health care market.

(see more in the Zacks ETF Center)

ISHARS-SWEDEN (EWD): ETF Research Reports

PRO-ULT HLTHCR (RXL): ETF Research Reports

To read this article on Zacks.com click here.

Zacks Investment Research

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report