No Surprise Here: Global Stocks Pressuring Sector ETFs, S&P Says

In research published today, Standard & Poor's Capital IQ noted that slack performances in international equity markets have been a pain for U.S. sector ETFs this year. Telling is the fact through Monday, only 128 U.S.-listed ETFs and ETNs were positive year-to-date and that's out of a universe of roughly 1,400 exchange-traded products. More bad news: S&P notes for “the equity ETFs or ETNs that were available for the full period, we found 454 with a negative total return, of which 247 were down more than 10%.” The research firm noted there were 113 domestic ETFs/ETNs with a positive total return while only five international founds had positive returns above 0% and almost 250 had negative returns. Among the sector funds positive on a year-to-date basis are the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR

XLP

, the Utilities Select Sector SPDR

XLU

, the Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF

VDC

, the PowerShares Dynamic Pharmaceuticals

PJP

and the iShares Dow Jones US Pharmaceuticals ETF

IHE

. The iShares Dow Jones US Pharmaceuticals ETF is the leader of that pack, up almost 15% year-to-date while the PowerShares equivalent is next line. S&P Capital IQ rates all five funds overweight. The firm has marketweight ratings on rival ETFs such as the Vanguard Utilities Index Fund; ETF Shares

VPU

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; the iShares Dow Jones US Utilities Sector Index Fund

IDU

, the First Trust Consumer Staples AlphaDex Fund

FXG

; and SPDR S&P Retail ETF

XRT

. Regarding ETFs that are down more than 50% year-to-date, S&P has a marketweight rating on the Market Vectors India Small-Cap ETF

SCIF

and underweight ratings on the Guggenheim Solar ETF

TAN

and its rival, the Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF

KWT

. Sixteen of the ETFs receiving an Overall Ranking of Overweight had a 12-month yield of more than 3%, while 14 of them had a yield of less than 1%. Thirty-six of the Overweight-ranked ETFs also had an Overall ranking of Overweight in each of S&P three primary analytical categoriesPerformance Analytics, Risk Considerations and Cost Factors, according to the S&P note.