Daily ETF Roundup: VXX Sinks, EWZ Soars

After slumping for much of the day, U.S. equity markets surged in the final two hours of trading to finish with modest gains. Both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 posted gains of more than 1%, while the Dow jumped by 0.7%. Oil and gold also rose, as both of these key commodities climbed by roughly 0.8% on the day. Today’s gains came despite weakness in the housing markets; housing starts hit an eighth-month low as the federal tax credit for buyers expired. Additionally, investors digested a poor earnings report out of blue chip IBM, which fell by about 4% on the day due to a 12% decline in second-quarter services bookings from the year-earlier period. These negatives were canceled out by a report that the Federal Reserve was preparing to announce an effort to force banks to lend more. Essentially, the bank would stop paying 0.25% interest on the cash that [...] Click here to read the original article on ETFdb.com. Related Stories: Daily ETF Roundup: EWZ Sinks, VXX Soars Daily ETF Roundup: GDX Soars, VXX Sinks Daily ETF Roundup: VXX Sinks, EWZ Soars