Industry ETFs In The Spotlight: August's Winners And Losers Revealed: Where Is Gold, Energy And Biotech?

The major U.S. stock indices, closely monitored through ETFs — the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF DIA, Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ, and the iShares Russell 2000 ETF IWM — are all poised to finish the month with negative results.

This will mark the first month of losses after a consecutive 5-month winning streak for both the SPY and the QQQ.

However, it’s worth considering which industries have fared better or worse in the stock market throughout August 2023.

Top-Performing Industry ETFs In August 2023

The list isn’t extensive, and the winners for August don’t boast astonishing performance, underscoring the prevailing downward market trend this month.

Among the industry ETFs that have still managed to achieve positive performance during this challenging month, we can identify:

1. SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration and Production XOP
   – Monthly performance (Aug): +3.7%
   – Year-to-date performance: +15.6%
   – Best performing stock (Aug): Texas Pacific Land Corp. TPL +29%
2. SPDR Insurance ETF KIE
   – Monthly performance (Aug): +0.4%
   – Year-to-date performance: +4.1%
   – Best performing stock (Aug): Erie Idemnity Company ERIE +27%
3. iShares Biotechnology ETF IBB
   – Monthly performance (Aug): +0.3%
   – Year-to-date performance: -0.4%
   – Best performing stock (Aug): Tango Therapeutics Inc. TNGX +97%

Worst-Performing Industry ETFs In August 2023

The vast majority of industries showed negative returns in August, and some of them fell more sharply than the broader market.

In particular, among the worst industry ETFs this month we find:

1. Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy ETF PBW
   – Monthly performance (Aug): -16%
   – Year-to-date performance: -2.6%
   – Worst performing stock (Aug): FTC Solar Inc. FTCI -48.1%
2. Invesco Solar ETF TAN
   – Monthly performance (Aug): -15%
   – Year-to-date performance: -20%
   – Worst performing stock (Aug): SolarEdge Technologies Inc. SEDG -34%
3. U.S. Global Jets ETF JETS
   – Monthly performance (Aug): -9.9%
   – Year-to-date performance: +15.6%
   – Worst performing stock (Aug): Frontier Group Holdings, Inc. ULCC -31%
4. SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF KRE
   – Monthly performance (Aug): -8.4%
   – Year-to-date performance: -22.7%
   – Worst performing stock (Aug): Customers Bancorp Inc. TPL -17%
5. VanEck Gold Miners ETF GDX
   – Monthly performance (Aug): -7.2%
   – Year-to-date performance: +1.7%
   – Worst performing stock (Aug): Hecla Mining Company Inc. HL -21%

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