Stock market’s gains top bonds

Article Excerpt

Stock market volatility sometimes appears when least expected. However, volatility as measured by the BetaPro S&P 500 VIX Futures ETF (Toronto symbol HUV), has substantially subsided in the months following a big spike in December 2018. As a result, this ETF, which gains in value when volatility rises or declines, lost 3.2% in July and is now down 50.7% over the past six months. Meanwhile, the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF (Toronto symbol HMMJ) dropped 11.7% in July as the CEO of its top holding, Canopy Growth, was let go and CannTrust, another of its top holdings, violated licensing rules. However, there were significant gains in the month, with the iShares MSCI Turkey ETF (Nasdaq symbol TUR) up 10.5%, the Invesco Dynamic SemiConductor ETF (New York symbol PSI) up 7.3%, and the SPDR S&P Telecom ETF (New York symbol XTL) up 3.5%. Global fixed-income markets continued their positive performance in July, although U.S. and Canadian bond markets lost some ground. The…