MutualFunds.com provides a snapshot of the performance of some key mutual funds and ETFs, trying to capture investor interest in specific areas of the financial markets. The report is aimed at providing a quick overview of the sectors, regions and asset classes that moved in a meaningful manner in the last 30 days. In addition, the report also highlights some of the key economic indicators for major geographies, reminding you to adjust your portfolios if required.
MutualFunds.com generates this report every fortnight. In order to select the mutual funds and ETFs highlighted in this report, MutualFunds.com uses a system to automatically scan through hundreds of relevant securities within different sectors, regions and asset classes. The system only picks up the best and worst performing securities for further manual analysis.
Performance Scorecard
Check out best and worst performers across different sectors, geographies and assset claases.
| Category | Monthly Performance | Mutual Funds | ETFs | 1-month Ret (%) |
| Sector | The oil and gas sector has been the best performing over the past fortnight, while semiconductor stocks have been hammered. | ENPIX: ProFunds UltraSector Oil & Gas Fund | 16.4% | |
| SMPIX: ProFunds Semiconductor UltraSector Fund | -16.2% | |||
| UCO: ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil | 25.5% | |||
| TQQQ: ProShares UltraPro QQQ | -24.7% | |||
| U.S. Broad | Value stocks have declined but they remained the best performers amid a stock market selloff. Small-cap stocks and tech-heavy Nasdaq are among the worst performers. | FSWCX: Fidelity® SAI US Value Index | -1.7% | |
| VVISX: Vulcan Value Partners Small Cap Fund | -10.4% | |||
| CSM: ProShares Large Cap Core Plus | 16.7% | |||
| UMDD: ProShares UltraPro MidCap400 | -15.8% | |||
| Fixed Inc | Emerging market bonds and intermediate term Treasuries posted strong performances, while long duration bonds recorded disappointing returns. | BEDIX: BlackRock Emerging Markets Flexible Dynamic Bond Portfolio | 1.3% | |
| PSLDX: PIMCO StocksPLUS® Long Duration Fund | -9.5% | |||
| ITE: SPDR® Portfolio Intermediate Term Treasury ETF | 41.7% | |||
| TLO: SPDR® Portfolio Long Term Treasury ETF | -12.3% | |||
| Alts | Commodities, especially oil, enjoyed strong returns, while real estate assets were rather weak. | PCLAX: PIMCO CommoditiesPLUS® Strategy Fund | 8.19% | |
| GSRHX: Goldman Sachs Real Estate Diversified Income Fund | -0.3% | |||
| UCO: ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil | 25.5% | |||
| REM: iShares Mortgage Real Estate Capped ETF | -36.5% | |||
| Foreign | Latin American equities and Brazil have recorded especially solid performances. At the other end of the spectrum are China's biotech industry and Poland. | RLAIX: T. Rowe Price Latin America Fund | 8.6% | |
| MSEEX: Morgan Stanley Europe Opportunity Fund Inc. | -12.8% | |||
| UBR: ProShares Ultra MSCI Brazil Capped | 27.3% | |||
| CHB: Global X China Biotech Innovation ETF | -17.8% |
Fund performance data for the period between January 13, 2022 and February 11, 2022.
Key Economic Indicators
Check out our quick take on the key economic indicators across North America, Europe and Asia.
| Economic Indicators | Comments |
| GDP | The UK economy is the fastest growing from the developed countries, with its annual GDP growth of 7.5% outpacing the growth in the EU and the U.S. However, some of this growth is due to base effects as output fell more during the pandemic. |
| Monetary Policy | U.S. inflation has continued to increase in January, putting more pressure on the Federal Reserve to start monetary tightening as soon as possible. U.S. inflation rose to a 40-year high of 7.5%, in the latest sign of an overheating economy. Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, is also running high at 6%. European inflation rose from 5% to 5.1% in January, hitting a record high. However, the European Central Bank said strong action is not needed as it expects inflation to fall in the coming period. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food, energy, and alcohol, is up 2.3%, down from 2.6% in the prior month, likely giving the ECB reasons to be more dovish. The Bank of England is taking a more cautious approach to rising inflation than the ECB, performing its second rate-hike in February to increase borrowing costs to 0.5%. The Bank warned that inflation could hit as much as 7% annually in April. |
| Consumer Spending | Crude oil inventories have declined in the past two weeks, after tepid increases in the prior fortnight. Crude stockpiles have been mostly falling since the COVID-19 pandemic. OPEC and Russia have confirmed their plan to increase oil output by roughly 400,000 barrels per day to keep global crude prices in check. OPEC has so far failed to raise production by the promised amount due to lack of capacity as investments have been too low recently. |
| Employment | U.S. unemployment claims were down to 238,000 per week in early February, down from 261,000 in the prior five-day period. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy added a whopping 467,000 jobs in January, after a revised 510,000 positions in the prior month. The unemployment rate fell by 4%, while average hourly earnings jumped 0.7% from 0.5% previously. This is a further sign that the labor market is strong and the economy recovered quickly from the pandemic and is running at full capacity. |
We provide this report on a fortnightly basis. To stay up to date with mutual fund market events, come back to our news page here.