Transportation ETF Moves Up Slowly but Surely
October 23rd at 12:30pm by Tom Lydon
The iShares Dow Jones Transportation Index (IYT) exchange traded fund (ETF) has been hit-or-miss recently as rising energy prices take their toll. IYT jumped today, after Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., a railway operating service and one of the fund’s top holdings, reported third-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates. Shares of Burlington rallied 5% to $87.16. Revenue for the quarter rose to $4.07 billion, also above the $4.04 billion analyst estimate, reports Wanfeng Zhou for Thomson Financial.
Among the ETF’s other heavily-weighted holdings that increased include shares of Union Pacific (UNP), FedEx (FDX), United Parcel Service (UPS), CSX (CSX), Con-Way and Norfolk Southern (NSC).
IYT was up 8% since the end of 2006. In comparison, the ETF that tracks the Dow Jones industrial average, DIAMONDS Trust, Series 1 (DIA) has gained 9.6% year-to-date. However, while many other indexes have rebounded nicely since the market low on Aug. 15, IYT has been a little slow, advancing only 3%.
