Stocks continued their uptrend in the first quarter despite heightened volatility. With the US vaccine rollout gaining momentum, investors expect the economy to rebound strongly. Therefore, they rotated out of earlier highflying tech stocks into cyclical areas that will benefit from the economic recovery.
The Dow rose 7.8%, while the S&P 500 returned 5.8% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 2.8% during the first quarter. Energy was the best performing sector, with a gain of 33%, followed by Finance, up 18%. Utilities was worst performing, with a gain of 2%.
Stocks have started the second quarter on a strong note, thanks to optimism generated by President Biden’s massive infrastructure plan and the blowout March jobs report.
The Breakwave Dry Bulk Shipping ETF (
BDRY
), which invests in dry bulk freight futures contracts, is the best performing unleveraged ETF this year with a gain of 130%. Container shipping rates have more than tripled over the past year, per FT, due to supply chain disruptions around the world caused by the pandemic. The blocking of Suez Canal, a crucial global trade route, further aggravated the problem.
Cannabis stocks & ETFs are soaring this year, thanks mainly to favorable policy outlook and improving industry fundamentals. The Amplify Seymour Cannabis ETF (
CNBS
) has surged almost 70% while the Global X Cannabis ETF (
POTX
) and the ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF (
MJ
) have gained more than 60%. Canopy Growth Corporation (
CGC
), GW Pharmaceuticals PLC (
GWPH
) and Aphria (
APHA
) are among the top holdings in CNBS.
Blockchain ETFs have benefitted from the incredible surge in bitcoin. The Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (
BLOK
) is up 62% this year. BLOK’s top holdings include MicroStrategy (
MSTR
) PayPal (
PYPL
) and Nvidia (
NVDA
).
To learn more about these ETFs, please watch the short video above.
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