Happy holidays! It is the eve before Christmas Eve. It is an abbreviated week, with markets closed Friday in observance of the holiday. Next week’s also a holiday but Wall Street isn’t taking a break for accounting reasons.
The good …and the badETF crystal balls? Portfolio strategist Astoria Advisors made some 2021 predictions, as a part of its annual call for the coming year. We thought it would make sense to review some of those themes, while looking for potential insights into 2022. Dr. Copper? A top area mentioned by Astoria was commodities, which had a terrible this week. The sector has been hit or miss on the year, depending on the fund. AA’s call of Global X Copper Miners ETF COPX, +0.91% turned out to be solid, up 20.7% on the year, so far. Its run likely has been underpinned by the reopening of global economies, a fitful process with coronavirus variants sometimes wreaking havoc on sentiment.
To be sure, past performance is no guarantee of future results and there is a sense that the transition from internal combustion engines to EVs could be a hitchy one. Punching above their weight Astoria’s small-capitalization pick in 2021 was a stellar one, with the WisdomTree U.S. SmallCap Fund EES, +0.84% surging over 31% on the year so far. The WisdomTree ETF has an expense ratio of 0.38% and offers exposure to the segment by “selecting and weighting stocks based on positive earnings over their most recent four quarters.” Astoria may have highlighted it because it provides what some investors would describe as “quality” companies.
Trouble in China On the other side of the ledger, Astoria ID’d China as a big theme—and it was. The only problem was that it wasn’t a good theme for investors. Astoria’s featured iShares MSCI China ETF, 0.06% expense and $72 billion in assets, was down 23% in the year to date. That said, things could have been worse. KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF KWEB, -1.04%, the heart of the regulatory storm in the region, tumbled 50% year to date and carried a 0.76% expense ratio.
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