Despite a sour end to the month, U.S. equities and stock exchange traded funds still notched a gain over May on upbeat first-quarter corporate earnings and signs of a steadily improving global economy.
U.S. stocks rose over May, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.2%, the Nasdaq Composite 0.2% higher and the S&P 500 up 1.0%.
Over the past month, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY), iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: IVV) and Vanguard 500 Index (NYSEArca: VOO) rose 1.4% while the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEArca: DIA) gained 0.8% and PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQ) increased 3.9%.
The best performing non-leveraged exchange traded products for the past month including the iPath US Treasury 5 Year Bull ETN (NasdaqGM: DFVL) up 4.2%, iPath US Treasury Long Bond Bull ETN (NasdaqGM: DLBL) up 3.7% and iShares International High Yield Bond ETF (NYSEArca: HYXU) up 3.4%.
On the other hand, the worst non-leveraged ETPs of the past month include the Barclays Inverse U.S. Treasury Aggregate ETN (NYSEArca: TAPR) down 8.0%, iPath US Treasury Steepener ETN (NasdaqGM: STPP) down 1.5% and WisdomTree Global Real Return Fund (NasdaqGM: RRF) down 1.3%.
U.S. equities climbed in May with a sort hiccup in the middle of the month.
At the start of May, improving economic data, including those on American consumers and employment, helped keep markets trucking along.
The markets, though, did experience minor swings on some political risks, including Republican’s narrow victory in voting to repeal Obamacare, which headed toward the Senate where further debate was expected.
Markets also continued to maintain their risk-on sentiment after pro-euro centrist Emmanual Macron won the French elections.
However, in mid-May, U.S. equities plunged almost 2% in one of their largest daily declines since before the U.S. elections after the New York Times reported that President Donald Trump asked former FBI-head James Comey to drop an investigation into the former national security advisor Michael Flynn.
Markets were selling off on prospects that the political drama would distract Congress from the pro-growth agenda that the Trump administration has been pushing forward, which has been fueling the post-election rally in U.S. equities.
Nevertheless, the markets pared the losses from the momentary political concerns and continued to push toward new record highs as traders focused on the improving economic outlook.
The markets, though, did slightly fall off in listless trading toward the end of the month but still managed to produce a positive gain over May despite the fall-off over the last couple of days of trading.
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