News

Wall Street was upbeat last week with the S&P 500 adding 1.9%, the Dow Jones advancing 2.2% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.1%. Most importantly, the Dow Jones just had its best week of 2024. On Friday, the Dow secured its eighth consecutive session of gains.

While most of the 30 members of the Dow Jones Index have performed well over the last seven days, the Dow rally was mainly driven by Amgen AMGN, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, Apple Inc. (AAPL), Boeing BA and The Goldman Sachs Group GS.

As far as the company-specific news are concerned, Apple drew attention. The company unveiled a new lineup of iPads for the first time in two years. The tech giant launched two new versions of its top-end iPad Pro models and two new versions of its mid-tier iPad Air. It also debuted the Apple Pencil Pro stylus and an updated Magic Keyboard case for the iPad Pro line.

Among US economic data points, we received a downbeat consumer sentiment data. Sentiment dropped to a six-month low. The University of Michigan Survey of Consumers sentiment index for May posted an initial reading of 67.4 for the month, down from 77.2 in April and well below the Dow Jones consensus call for 76.

Fed officials reaffirmed the stance for higher rates for a longer period. Policymaker Neel Kashkari signaled that rates are likely to stay at historic highs for a while. Boston Fed President Susan Collins further supported this notion, saying it will take longer "than previously thought" to bring inflation down (read: ETFs to Bet on Dow Jones' Longest Winning Streak of 2024).

Meanwhile, U.S. companies are having their best earnings season in nearly two years. With 80% of the companies in the S&P 500 having already reported, the index is on track to record 5% growth in first-quarter earnings per share per FactSet, as quoted on Yahoo Finance.

This is the biggest year-over-year increase since the second quarter of 2022 and higher than 3.2% growth that analysts had expected prior to the start of the season (read: Time to Tap Wall Street ETFs on Earnings Strength?).

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

ETFs in Focus

Miners

iShares MSCI Global Silver Miners ETF SLVP – Up 8.7%

VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF GDXJ – Up 6.7%

U.S. treasury yields remained subdued for most of the week. This has boosted the strength of the gold and silver bullion. As the mining stocks act as leveraged plays of the underlying metal, leveraged miners topped the return scoreboard in the last week.

Shipping

SonicShares Global Shipping ETF BOAT – Up 7.7%

Shipping companies have been the best performing stocks lately, as the re-routing of vessels following attacks in the Red Sea boosted freight rates.

Industrials

First Trust RBA American Industrial Renaissance ETF AIRR – Up 5.8%

Lower interest rates prevailed last week helped sectors that depend on huge borrowings. The underlying Richard Bernstein Advisors American Industrial Renaissance Index measures the performance of small and mid-cap US companies in the industrial and community banking sectors.

Natural Gas

United States Natural Gas Fund LP UNG – Up 5.4%

Natural gas prices are hovering around a 14-week high, driven by a combination of supply and demand factors that are beginning to trim the storage surplus. The underlying Natural Gas Price Index is the futures contract on natural gas as traded on the NYMEX.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.