This has been a banner year for the stock market, with the Dow Jones emerging as the biggest beneficiary of the rotation in leadership in the large-cap domestic space. The index climbed 25%, marking the best annual performance since 2013, and has moved up 5,000-points this year — the biggest annual gain in its history. Additionally, it has logged in the highest-ever number of record closes in 2017.
If a Santa Rally lifts the Dow Jones’ returns to above 26.5% the year, it would be the strongest gain since 1995, when the blue-chip index had spiked 33%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have risen 20% and 30%, respectively, so far this year.
The euphoria on Wall Street was driven by dual tailwinds of strong corporate earnings and economic growth. This combined with the optimism over the biggest tax overhaul in decades has raised the appeal for riskier assets. Lower tax rates would boost earnings, leading to reflation trade and spark a wave of share buybacks, dividend hikes and mergers & acquisitions. Further, still-low interest rates and a rise in oil prices have added to the strength.
Investors should note that the surge in technology and Internet stocks has led to a rally in the Nasdaq index.
While there have been winners in every corner of the space, several ETFs & stocks have easily crushed the market this year with a few funds generating more than 50% returns and a few stocks gaining more than 200%. Below, we have presented a bunch of those that will continue to outperform in the New Year given that these have potentially superior weighting methodologies and a solid Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy).
iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB – Free Report) – Up 58.3%
This fund provides a pure play to home construction stocks by tracking the Dow Jones U.S. Select Home Construction Index. With AUM of $2.5 billion, it holds a basket of 48 stocks while charges 44 bps in annual fees. The product trades in a heavy volume of around 2.4 million shares a day on average and has a Zacks ETF Rank #2.
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