Exchange traded funds pegged to global financial stocks rallied Thursday after the European Central Bank said it was coordinating with other central banks to provide dollar liquidity. The surprise move is designed to ease the funding pressures in Europe.
Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEArca: XLF) was up 1.5% in recent trading while bank stocks jumped in Europe after the ECB announcement.
However, financial ETFs are lagging the rally in U.S. stocks over the past five weeks.
“Stocks put together a pretty good rally over the last five weeks, but the finance sector continues to show relative weakness,” according to StockCharts.com.
“All nine sectors are keeping pace with gains at or above the S&P 500 gain,” it added, but the financial ETF has gained “considerably less.” Since Aug. 8, the financial fund is up 3.6% compared with the 6.2% gain for the S&P 500, according to the report.