TradingMarkets 7 ETFs You Need to Know for Friday

• By David Penn
• On 4:00 pm EST, Thursday November 12, 2009

Energies led the markets lower on Thursday as declining oil prices gave traders reason to take profits in the sector. This meant lower levels - and higher ETF PowerRatings - for exchange-traded funds like the SPDR S&P Oil & Exploration & Production ETF (NYSE:XOP - News), which lost well over 2% in closing at its lowest level in seven days.

Here are 7 ETFs You Need to Know for Friday.

The losses in energy shares were a boon for the ProShares UltraShort Oil & Gas ETF (NYSE:DUG - News), which rallied from oversold below the 200-day moving average to overbought on Thursday. DUG is leveraged two-to-one to the inverse of the daily return of the Dow Jones U.S. Oil & Gas Index.

Up more than 3% from its oversold lows below the 200-day was the ProShares UltraShort Financial ETF (NYSE:SKF - News). Inverse leveraged ETFs are popular vehicles for short term traders, as well as investors looking to hedge equity holdings.

Gaining for a third consecutive session is another popular exchange-traded fund that can be used to hedge against risk: the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures ETN (NYSE:VXX - News) closed higher by more than 3% on Thursday as stock markets began to pullback in earnest.

The iShares MSCI Brazil Index Fund ETF (NYSE:EWZ - News) is among the most oversold country ETFs as of Thursday's close, earning an ETF PowerRatings upgrade from 5 to 8.

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Among the major equity index ETFs, the pullback of more than 1% in the iShares Russell 2000 Index ETF (NYSE:IWM - News) represented renewed selling of small cap stocks which did not approach new yearly highs - as did the SPDRS S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:SPY - News), for example - during the recent bounce.

Lower gold prices helped encourage profit-taking in the extremely overbought Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE:GDX - News) on Thursday. GDX dropped from an overbought 2-period RSI of more than 99 to oversold levels in a single session, taking the ETF down nearly 3% in the process.

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Buzz up!