These Sector ETFs Could See June Gloom

Just two trading days have been notched in June, but U.S. stocks are off to a solid start in the final month of the quarter. That could be seen as an encouraging sign give June's reputation for being unkind to stocks.

While some sector exchange-traded funds can be decent performers this month, others can provided big disappointments and some of those potential duds are arguably surprising.

Checking In On The Sector ETFs For June

For example, investors might do well to not bet on the start of the summer travel seasons with leisure and travel ETFs, such as the US Global Jets ETF JETS and the PowerShares Dynamic Leisure and Entertainment ETF PEJ.

“PEJ could struggle especially hard, if past is prologue. By the numbers, PEJ has lost an average of 3.1 percent during the past 10 Junes, ending positive just 30 percent of the time,” according to Schaeffer's Investment Research.

The $127.5 million PEJ tracks the Dynamic Leisure & Entertainment Intellidex Index, a smart beta that is apt to have more turnover than a cap-weighted benchmark. That is to say PEJ's 41 holdings today probably do not look the same as three years ago or five years ago. PEJ's index considers companies “based on a variety of investment merit criteria, including: price momentum, earnings momentum, quality, management action, and value,” according to PowerShares.

Currently, PEJ is a roughly 80 percent/20 percent split between consumer discretionary and industrial stocks, but all seven of the ETF's industrial holdings are airline stocks. Individual airlines that often struggle in June include Delta Air Lines, Inc. DAL and United Continental Holdings Inc UAL.

Delta “has ended June higher only twice in the past 10 years, losing 5.6 percent on average, and UAL stock also has just two positive finishes during that time, averaging a loss of 9.7 percent,” according to Schaeffer's.

That is not good news for PEJ, which allocates a combined 9.8 percent of its weight to Delta and United. If those stocks hold true to historical June form, JETS could be pinched because the airline ETF allocates over 24 percent of its combined weight to those names.

Remembering that airlines are part of the broader industrial sector, perhaps it is not surprising that the Industrial Select Sector SPDR XLI is, historically, one of the worst-performing sector SPDR ETFs in June.