March's Best And Worst ETFs: Financials Strong, Commodities Weak

Michael Johnston submits:ProShares continues to be one of the most active ETF issuers of 2010, announcing the launch on Thursday of the first inverse and leveraged ETFs offering exposure to regional banks.

By Moby Waller:With 2 months under our belt in 2012, it's been a strong general performance for stocks. As we previously analyzed, the strong start to this year bodes well for rest of the year in terms of the market holding gains for the year and possibly adding quite a bit more to it.

ETFs can be excellent trading vehicles, giving broad industry or asset class exposure in a single trade.  Essentially, an ETF is a basket of stocks or other securities that can be bought in a single transaction.  There are two primary advantages when trading ETFs

ETF Database submits: Homebuilders were among the hardest hit sectors during the recent recession, as steep declines in demand for new properties brought this once-booming industry to a standstill. However, the combination of legislative initiatives (such as the home buyer tax credit) and record low interest rates have breathed life into a sector that was recently left for dead. This optimism is visible in the performance of two homebuilder ETFs that are currently available to U.S.

By Tom Lydon: The U.S. housing market has been hard hit coming off the financial crisis, but cautiously optimistic investors are beginning to venture back into homebuilder exchange traded funds.

Dan Pritch submits: Real estate’s really been an amazing story in 2010. The sector has been both volatile and profitable in the face of massive legislative overhauls, credit and liquidity crises, stubborn unemployment numbers, record low mortgage rates and a housing glut.

By David Fry (ETF Digest): Perhaps there is no sector more at the mercy of the vicissitudes of macroeconomic trends than housing and homebuilding. After all, the recent financial crisis had an awful lot to do with mortgage-backed securities and home construction.

Michael Johnston submits:The financial sector was one of the hardest hit areas of the economy in 2008 and early 2009, as years of excessive risk taking finally resulted in a meltdown that spurred several unprecedented emergency measures and set off one of the worst recessions in a generation.