Here is the list with some discussion below
Ticker | Company | Return YTD | Volume |
AGQ | ProShares Ultra Silver | 115.49% | 851 |
BHH | B2B Internet HOLDRs | 68.89% | 104 |
TQQQ | ProShares UltraPro QQQ | 63.49% | 284 |
SIL | Global X Silver Miners ETF | 59.09% | 445 |
SIVR | ETFS Physical Silver Shares | 58.33% | 402 |
SLV | iShares Silver Trust | 57.98% | 21,728 |
URTY | ProShares UltraPro Russell2000 | 54.65% | 104 |
GDXJ | Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF | 51.13% | 2,217 |
EPU | iShares MSCI All Peru Capped Index | 50.56% | 299 |
PALL | ETFS Physical Palladium Shares | 50.54% | 263 |
DGP | PowerShares DB Gold Double Long ETN | 48.98% | 1,023 |
THD | iShares MSCI Thailand Invest Mkt Index | 46.13% | 293 |
DRN | Direxion Daily Real Estate Bull 3X Shrs | 46.07% | 965 |
UGL | ProShares Ultra Gold | 45.86% | 234 |
GXG | Global X/InterBolsa FTSE Colombia 20 ETF | 44.39% | 151 |
MWJ | Direxion Daily Mid Cap Bull 3X Shares | 42.59% | 139 |
IDX | Market Vectors Indonesia Index ETF | 41.24% | 226 |
ECH | iShares MSCI Chile Investable Mkt Idx | 40.76% | 313 |
TNA | Direxion Daily Small Cap Bull 3X Shares | 38.19% | 11,761 |
URE | ProShares Ultra Real Estate | 36.85% | 1,247 |
MVV | ProShares Ultra MidCap400 | 36.45% | 205 |
FDN | First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index | 35.02% | 250 |
XRT | SPDR S&P Retail | 33.78% | 10,561 |
EIDO | iShares MSCI Indonesia Invstble Mkt Idx | 33.09% | 237 |
AMJ | JPMorgan Alerian MLP Index ETN | 32.73% | 827 |
XXV | iPath Inverse S&P 500 Vix S/T Fut ETN | 31.25% | 170 |
UWM | ProShares Ultra Russell2000 | 31.16% | 2,802 |
FRN | Guggenheim Frontier Markets | 30.35% | 145 |
UYM | ProShares Ultra Basic Materials | 29.20% | 1,411 |
EWM | iShares MSCI Malaysia Index | 29.00% | 2,943 |
Note - the 2nd best performer of the year is a old school Business to Business (B2B!) Internet ETF (this is from the late 90s). So many companies that were once in this ETF went bust in the post 90s bubble that this ETF only holds 2 names - Ariba and Internet Capital Group. Now that's old school.
Excluding that gem, and removing the "Ultra" ETFs from the conversation we can see a lot of emphasis on metals (precious or otherwise - with silver the star) and foreign emerging markets; especially of the Asian and South American kind. It seems 2009 was the year of the 'BRIC' - whereas 2010 is the year if the smaller fry in the same regions.
The triple and double real estate funds (usually full of REITs) was a surprise to me, considering this group had a whopper of a year in 2009 off the March lows. XXV is a new name to me - essentially it bets against market volatility (usually expressed via VIX). What I am curious about if the structure of the fund is as faulty as VXX ETF or indeed it bets in opposite direction of VXX and hence benefits from how poorly that ETF is designed.