Can These ETFs Reclaim Their 52-Week Highs? (FEZ, TUR, IAI)

The market rally may have been showing some signs of vulnerability last week, but some solid year-to-date statistics are still in place for scores of stocks and ETFs and that means there are currently plenty of ETFs that are either making new 52-week highs on an almost daily basis or are sitting just pennies away from the illustrious new 52-week high club. Said differently, hunting for value in terms of ETFs that remain a fair bit removed from their 52-week highs on a percentage basis can be a tricky task for multiple reasons. First, a screen for ETFs that are 15% or more below their 52-week highs and that trade at least 25,000 shares per day turns up over 140 funds. Second, we want to strip out the leveraged funds. Finally, and most importantly, we only want to find those funds that have legitimate chances of getting back to or eclipsing their previous highs. Here are a few with the potential to deliver solid returns and perhaps some surprises as 2012 moves along. iShares Dow Jones US Broker-Dealers Index Fund IAI Considering that Goldman Sachs GS and Morgan Stanley MS are this ETF's top two holdings, combining for 16% of its weight, IAI doesn't get a lot of press. It's also not heavily traded with average daily volume of just over 34,200 shares and it's kind of small considering it's almost six years old with less than $74 million in assets under management. Those complaints aside, IAI was about 17% removed its 52-week high at the start of trading today. If financials continue to power the broader market rally and Goldman can steer clear of controversy, it's possible IAI can at least make a run at its previous. We say that cautiously though because IAI is already up 20% year-to-date. iShares Dow Jones US Oil Equipment Index Fund IEZ The iShares Dow Jones US Oil Equipment Index Fun might be a controversial pick for finding its way back to its highs, particularly because investors have been pulling cash out of the fund recently. Arguably, recent weakness among oil services ETFs is attributable to stock-specific issues, not an industry-wide epidemic. Problem children such as Baker Hughes BHI and Weatherford WFT have been straining the group in the past month, but if those issues pass and oil prices march higher, IEZ's correlation to oil futures and its allocation to high-quality services names such as Schlumberger SLB and National Oilwell Varco NOV could spark a rally. iShares MSCI Turkey Investable Market Index Fund TUR TUR has the honor of being part of our new DUPT acronym but there are good things working in favor of the Turkish economy. This is a services driven economy, something that should not be overlooked in the emerging markets conversation because that means Turkey isn't highly dependent on high commodities prices to drive its economic success. TUR currently trades below $53 and the ETF's high is just over $69, so asking for a return to that area is asking a lot. Even if TUR does get back to $69, it has the ammunition to at least make an interesting (and profitable) go of it. SPDR EURO STOXX 50 ETF FEZ Maybe the most ambitious pick of this quartet and that's not just because the SPDR EURO STOXX 50 ETF was almost 22% below its previous high at the start of trading today. Obviously, Europe is the biggest headwind with this ETF and FEZ's almost 25% allocation to financials means it needs global investors to continue betting on European banks. With a combined 21% allocation to Spain and Italy, FEZ's margin for error is small, but it's vulnerability to headline risk is large. The good news is investors will be compensated to roll the dice on FEZ as the ETF currently yields 4.7%.