ETF month and year-to-date performance

Note the collapse in equity markets at the end of 2018 makes the year-to-date gains look really strong.
 The S&P 500 hit a new all-time high last week, but the index is essentially flat since hitting new highs nine months ago.

Sector/industry/index ETF (descending MTD) MTD, YTD as we wrap up the second quarter

• Oil services OIH +12.69% +5.06%
• Semis SMH +12.37% +26.47%
• Materials XLB +10.71% +15.60%
• Biotech XBI +10.06% +21.85%
• Oil USO +8.38% +24.48%
• Technology XLK +8.33% +25.65%
• Energy XLE +8.04% +10.71%
• Gold GLD +7.91% +9.76%
• Cons. Discretionary XLY +7.33% +20.26%
• Industrials XLI +7.23% +19.95%
• Nasdaq 100 QQQ +7.10% +20.77%
• Transports IYT +7.04% +13.90%
• DJIA DIA +6.92% +13.81%
• Russell 2000 IWM +6.55% +16.07%
• S&P 500 SPY +6.23% +17.01%
• Financials XLF +5.84% +15.58%
• Retail XRT +5.74% +3.32%
• Healthcare XLV +5.72% +6.66%
• Oil/gas E&P XOP +5.72% +2.05%
• Software IGV +5.67% +25.60%
• Emerging mkts EEM +5.16% +9.60%
• Silver SLV +5.02% -1.27%
• Cons. Staples XLP +4.28% +14.20%
• Comm. Services XLC +4.23% +18.90%
• Internet FDN +3.93% +22.90%
• Utilities XLU +2.09% +12.38%
• Long Bond TLT +0.88% +9.45%
• Real Estate XLRE +0.58% +18.32%

Today's Data

Commodities:

• WTI crude: -1.7% to $58.38/bbl
• Gold: +0.1% to $1413.05/ozt
• Copper: -0.5% to $2.71/lb

Currencies:

• EUR/USD: +0.1% to 1.1373
• GBP/USD: +0.3% to 1.2698
• USD/CNH: UNCH at 6.8708
• USD/JPY: UNCH at 107.79

Metals Settlement Prices:

• Aug gold settled today's session $1.50 higher (+0.1%) at $1413.05/oz
• Sept silver settled today's session $0.05 higher (+0.3%) at $15.34/oz
• Sept copper settled $0.01 lower (-0.4%) at $2.71/lb

Agriculture Settlement Prices:

• July corn settled $0.19 lower (-4.3%) at $4.26/bushel
• July wheat settled $0.20 lower (-3.7%) at $5.26/bushel
• July soybeans settled $0.11 higher (+1.2%) at $9.05/bushel
  • Grains took a hit today following the release of the USDA annual acreage and quarterly grain stocks reports
  • Maybe the most notable data was in the corn data. The USDA showed that corn acres planted is expected to come in at 91.7 mln acres this year, way above analyst expectations of about 87 mln
  • In the most recent monthly WASDE report, the USDA cut corn acres planted by 3 million acres to 89.8 million acres
  • However, the acreage report comes out of a different agency in the USDA and the acreage report is not an update to the monthly WASDE report, so the number today was a big surprise

Energy Settlement Prices:

• July Crude Oil futures fell $0.99 (-1.7%) to $58.38/barrel
  • REMINDER: Big OPEC meeting on Monday and Tuesday
  • A key topic will be whether to extend the OPEC+ production cuts into the second half of 2019
• July Natural Gas settles $0.02 lower (-0.9%) at $2.31/MMBtu
• July RBOB Gasoline settled $0.02 lower (-1.0%) at $1.89/gallon
• July Heating oil futures settled $0.02 lower (-1.0%) at $1.94/gallon