CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust (NYSEArca: FXY) had a very heavy volume week on very little volatility, as the fund continues to trend above its 50 day moving average line, and apparently a large institution or institutions are making a long bet in the currency via the ETF as about $500 million flowed into the fund.
With the exception of Friday’s late day weakness, financials were well bid from the intraday “floor” touched on Tuesday throughout the rest of the week, and we saw aggressive call buying in Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLF) and heavy buying in the ETF itself as well as Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (NYSEArca: FAS). [ETF Chart of the Day: Financials]
With the financials sector significantly lagging the broader market year to date, it has become simply a “higher beta” sector in the context of other S&P 500 sectors, and it felt that this week investors were “afraid to miss a big reversal” in a sector that has been especially hard hit during recent market turmoil. Shares of large-cap banks Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) were under pressure on Friday. [Financial ETFs Slide Into Weekend]
Finally, oil related ETFs such as U.S. Oil Fund (NYSEArca: USO), U.S. 12 Month Oil Fund (NYSEArca: USL) and PowerShares DB Oil Fund (NYSEArca: DBO) finished the week on a high note, registering four straight up days, but are still trading below key 50 and 200 day moving averages as it appears institutional investors are starting to “nibble” at oil the commodity at current levels, but a prolonged uptrend is still very unconvincing. [ETF Chart of the Day: Oil]
Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares
Chart source: StockCharts.com.
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