The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Growth Index Fund (EGRW), an iShares' smaller developing-economy-focused strategy with just $2.7 million in assets, was the best-performing ETF in the past week ended Thursday, Nov. 1, with gains of more than 7.5 percent.
To put that performance in perspective, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 129 points, or just shy of 1 percent in the same Thursday-to-Thursday period.
It's worth noting that the market was closed on Monday and Tuesday due to Hurricane Sandy's impact on the Eastern U.S., and the return to business as usual wasn't without its glitches. Indeed, Knight Capital, the market's leading ETF market maker, lost a backup generator and had to reroute clients to other trading firms. It’s now back up.
That shortened trading week is what’s behind relatively modest inflows into ETFs in the past week. All in all, investors poured $4.35 billion into U.S.-listed ETFs in the Thursday-to-Thursday period, pushing total ETF assets up to $1.297 trillion.
That market closure was pegged as the culprit behind a drop in inflows into commodities funds, as HardAssetsInvestor’s Weekly Commodities Flow story pointed out.
Indeed, as an asset class, commodities ETFs were net losers on the week, after suffering outflows of $6.4 million, according to data compiled by IndexUniverse. But U.S. equities ETFs and U.S. fixed-income ETFs attracted $2.14 billion and $1.44 billion, respectively.
From a trading volume perspective, it was the Global X Silver Miners ETF (SIL) that saw the most trading activity of all the funds found among the top 10 best-performing ETFs in the past week, with an average daily volume of more than 900,000 shares.
SIL is an equities fund that serves up exposure to silver miners at a time when silver prices have been rallying, and the fund rose 4.64 percent. A competing strategy, the iShares MSCI Global Silver Miners Index Fund (SLVP), was also among the week's best performing funds, with gains of 4.31 percent.
On the flip side, the Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF (GREK) fell 16.56 percent in the past week, earning the distinction of being the week’s worst-performing ETF.
GREK's performance remains marked by wide price swings, as market sentiment and economic prospects for Greece, the country sitting at the center of the eurozone debt crisis, continue to shift.
Top 10 Weekly Performers, Excluding Leverage/Inverse Funds and '1,000 Shares Traded
| Ticker | Name | Weekly Performance | Weekly Volume | AUM ($, mm) |
| EGRW | iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Growth | 7.56% | 1,950 | 2.68 |
| DWAS | PowerShares DWA SmallCap Technical Leaders | 7.15% | 117,755 | 14.36 |
| ECNS | iShares MSCI China Small Cap | 5.72% | 30,477 | 16.31 |
| PEK | Market Vectors China | 5.02% | 10,288 | 12.08 |
| PLTM | First Trust ISE Global Platinum | 4.84% | 13,124 | 8.27 |
| FCA | First Trust China AlphaDex | 4.66% | 2,350 | 2.26 |
| SIL | Global X Silver Miners | 4.64% | 2,720,780 | 388.72 |
| HAO | Guggenheim China Small Cap | 4.57% | 403,686 | 219.89 |
| QCLN | First Trust NASDAQ Clean Edge Green Energy | 4.39% | 8,717 | 14.16 |
| SLVP | iShares MSCI Global Silver Miners | 4.31% | 10,226 | 2.44 |
Bottom 10 Weekly Performers, Excluding Leverage/Inverse Funds and '1,000 Shares Traded
| Ticker | Name | Weekly Performance | Weekly Volume | AUM ($, mm) |
| GREK | Global X FTSE Greece 20 | -16.56% | 307,530 | 24.11 |
| JYN | iPath JPY/USD Exchange Rate ETN | -9.19% | 1,750 | 5.84 |
| VIIX | VelocityShares VIX Short Term ETN | -8.68% | 1,224,885 | 10.10 |
| VIXY | ProShares VIX Short-Term | -8.64% | 3,038,544 | 163.17 |
| VXX | iPath S'P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN | -8.62% | 87,738,824 | 1,473.09 |
| CVOL | C-Tracks Exchange-Traded Notes on the Citi Volatility | -6.64% | 70,956 | 5.28 |
| VIXM | ProShares VIX Mid-term | -6.23% | 327,776 | 94.14 |
| VXZ | iPath S'P 500 VIX Mid-Term Futures ETN | -6.06% | 1,188,263 | 120.98 |
| GAZ | iPath Dow Jones-UBS Natural Gas Total Return ETN | -5.62% | 143,939 | 42.78 |
| GWO | ELEMENTS Credit Suisse Global Warming ETN | -5.59% | 1,400 | 2.97 |
Disclaimer:All data as of 6 a.m. Eastern time the date the article is published. Data is believed to be accurate; however, transient market data is often subject to subsequent revision and correction by the exchanges.
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