ETF Performance Highlights

Article Excerpt

The big ETF winner over the past month was the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences Index ETF (symbol HMMJ) with a 32.3% gain. This performance was driven by a jump in share prices for its top holdings, including Canopy Growth, Aurora Cannabis, Organigram and Aphria. The move by several global beverage companies to increase their interest in the industry spurred those gains. (We highlighted this ETF in our June 2018 issue.) Solid gains were also recorded by the SPDR Healthcare Equipment ETF (XHE; up 11%), the iShares US Medical Device ETF (IHI; up 6.8%) and SPDR Healthcare ETF (XLV; up 5.4%). One of the worst performers among U.S. ETFs over the past month was again the iShares MSCI Turkey ETF (TUR). It lost 28.9% due to investor concerns about new powers awarded to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğanas and his comments challenging the independence of Turkey’s central bank. The past month saw previous gains for some emerging markets disappear. The iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (EWZ) lost 14.0%, while the iShares MSCI Chile ETF (ECH) lost 8.6%. 8.6%….