These ETFs Have Topped Tech's Big 3

The Nasdaq trio of Amazon AMZN, Apple AAPL and Google GOOG have been, to put it delicately, impressive over the past three months. Amid new product introductions and favorable sentiment toward the technology sector, these names have buttressed their status as growth darlings. In the past three months, Amazon has jumped 17 percent, which trails the 20.8 percent Apple has gained over the same time. Both pale in comparison to Google, which surged almost 36.2 percent since late July. Investors that bought any of the three in July are probably quite happy. Those with the capital to have invested in all three are sitting on an average three-month gain of 24.6 percent. Said another way, owning the trio of Amazon, Apple and Google for the past three months delivered returns that are 50 percent better than what the SPDR S&P 500 SPY has done in all of 2012. Yes, it is hard to find ETFs that have outperformed the average gain of the aforementioned tech trio over the past 90 days. Hard, but not impossible. Take a look at the following funds: Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF GDXJ The small-cap cousin to the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF GDX, itself recently an impressive performer, has simply been on fire. GDXJ is on pace for a 30 percent third-quarter gain. Even if it stayed in neutral until the end of the quarter, the ETF will end up having outpaced Amazon and Apple by healthy margins. The mining ETFs have finally stopped frustrating investors and are outpacing ETFs backed by physical gold such as the SPDR Gold Shares GLD, as ETF Trends notes. To its credit, GDX has slightly outperformed Amazon in the past three months as well. Global X Silver Miners ETF SIL For as good as the gold miners have been in the past 90 days, the silver miners are having a say in the matter as well. In that time, the Global X Silver Miners ETF, by far the largest of the two silver miners ETFs, has jumped 31.2 percent. That run easily trumps the returns offered by Amazon and Apple over the same time and it also beats the average of Amazon, Apple and Google. The rival iShares MSCI Global Silver Miners Fund SLVP has been stout as well, surging nearly 29 percent. Market Vectors Egypt ETF EGPT Simply put, the Market Vectors Egypt ETF has been on a torrid pace this year. It is one of the best-performing country-specifc ETFs tracking any type of market, developed, emerging or frontier. What makes EGPT's performance all the more noteworthy is that the ETF is soaring in the face of Middle East headlines that cannot be considered favorable. A case can be made that EGPT is overbought at current levels. Then again, some might argue the ETF still has some upside ahead because it still trades well below where resided before the onset of the 2011 Arab Spring. In the past three months, EGPT is up a Google-esque 35 percent, which is to say a tiny ETF tracking one of the most politically volatile countries in the world and a frontier market at that has been twice as good as Amazon over the same and almost 1,500 basis points better than Apple. For more on ETFs, click here.