Oil and Gas Exploration ETFs: The Wave of the Future?

September 24, 2008 at 1:00 pm by Tom Lydon

Oil ETFsThe market is down, no doubt, and exchange traded fund(ETFs) have followed, but one thing is for certain that the market will turn around and financial markets will recover.

Stocks all recover from bear markets, and they will recover from recent conditions. Gary Gordon for ETFExpert says people are scared to death. But they were scared to death in the aftermath of Black Monday in 1987. They were scared to death by the 20% decline following the S&L legislated bailout in 1989. They were scared to death by the poor performing 70s, and the Business Week cover blunder in 1979, “The Death of Equities.”

So what are optimistic investors looking at? They are checking out the highly profitable companies: those that are busy drilling. After all, those are the ones that stand to gain if the drilling movement gathers steam.

“Drill, baby, drill” might become a reality someday, as a supply drop is anticipated. Prices are up close to $108 a barrel today, reports Stevenson Jacobs for the Associated Press. In the wake of hurricanes, 66% of oil production and 61% of natural gas output in the Gulf of Mexico remains shut-in. The Gulf is home to about 25% of U.S. oil production and 40% of its refining capacity.

Alternative energy ETFs might be benefiting from oil’s fluctuations and the anticipated supply announcements, though. Solar and wind energy ETFs are trading sharply higher today.

  • SPDR Oil and Gas Exploration (XOP), up 35.3% year-to-date
  • PowerShares Dynamic Energy Exploration And Production (PXE), up 24% year-to-date
  • Claymore/MAC Global Solar Energy (TAN), down 22.2% since its inception on April 15
  • First Trust Global Wind Energy (FAN), down 25.7% since its inception on June 27

Oil ETF

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