Few bright spots in May

Article Excerpt

Due to concerns about a possible U.S. debt default, inflation, and rising interest rates, U.S. equity markets moved up only slightly in May. However, the Canadian market fell back as lower energy and commodity prices weighed on producers. The volatile U.S. Natural Gas ETF (symbol UNG) had another terrible month with an 11.6% drop. That brought its decline for the year to 56%. Oil and other commodities were also sharply down in the month—the broad-based SPDR Energy Select ETF (XLE) and the iShares Global Metals and Mining ETF (PICK) and the iShares Global Agriculture ETF (Toronto symbol COW) were all down by more than 8%. Among the big gainers in May were semiconductors, technology, and cybersecurity. The VanEck Semi-Conductor ETF (symbol SMH) advanced by 16.7% for a total gain so far this year of 42.2%. Nvidia and Broadcom were among the biggest gainers in this ETF. At the broad market level, the Vanguard Total World Stocks ETF (VT) lost 1.2% for the month. U.S. equities as represented by the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) gained 0.5%, but…