Higher rates may hurt these ETFs

Article Excerpt

U.S. retail sales continue to recover as employment, wages and consumer confidence rise. The growth of online shopping has also contributed to the recovery. Still, the pace of future gains for retailers will largely depend on how fast interest rates move up. Here are two ETFs that aim to benefit from the continuing rise in consumer spending (for more information, see the supplement on page 49). SPDR S&P RETAIL ETF $45 (New York symbol XRT; TSINetwork ETF Rating: Aggressive; Market cap: $427.8 million) invests in firms that are involved in the U.S. retail industry. It holds stocks in several sectors, including clothing retail (24%), e-commerce (16%), automotive retail (15%) and food retail (9%). Retail sales, excluding food services, are almost 5% higher than a year ago. E-commerce sales rose 16.0% in 2017 over 2016, and accounted for 8.9% of retail sales. Many traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers are recovering as they boost online sales The fund holds 85 stocks, equally weighted; Those companies include DSW (clothing retail),…