Bonds Clock Utility ETFs

The tradable funds delivered mixed
Friday with tech-focused ETFs among the winners and losers, and utility funds
falling with bonds.

Treasury prices tumbled after a
government report showed a still-tight U.S. labor market and rising wages,
dashing hopes for the Federal Reserve to drop its credit-tightening bias.
Utility stocks, which are often held for dividend income and thus act like
bonds, fell in sympathy. The Utility HOLDR
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lost 2.1%, the Dow Jones
Utilities iShares
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IDU |
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1.9%. The Cyclicals-Transportation SPDR
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XLY |
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gave up 1.5%.

TradingMarkets’ Tony Crescenzi, bond
market strategist for Miller, Tabak, thinks the analysts missed more
forward-looking signs of deterioration in the jobs market. For Tony’s contrarian
view, check out his latest commentary.

The technology ETFs were a mixed bag
as their component stocks contended with the bearish shift in Fed expectations
but warmed to Street-beating results from Qualcomm
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. As I noted in my
Trading The News commentary, the shares in
the wireless technology company came under strong accumulation
in response to the news. 

On the upside, the Broadband HOLDR
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BDH |
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moved ahead 4.5%, the day’s sharpest gain among the exchange-traded
funds
. Qualcomm has the fourth largest weighting in the basket of 20
stocks of broadband companies. The B2B Internet HOLDR
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gained 2.3%, the
Internet Architecture HOLDR
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IAH |
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2.2%, the Dow Jones Technology Index
iShares
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1.3%.

On the downside, the Biotech HOLDR
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gave up 2.3%, the Internet HOLDR
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HHH |
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2.2%, the Semiconductor HOLDR
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SMH |
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0.8%.