Retail, Gold Miners And Small-Cap ETFs To Watch This Week

The market last week once again set an all-time high on Friday as investors continued to cheer solid earnings and macroeconomic data. The recovery from the October low has shown tremendous resilience that appears ready to be carried forward into the end of the year.

The week ahead features a light economic calendar that is headlined by October retail sales data. In addition, several high profile companies such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and Cisco Systems, Inc. are set to report earnings.

Here are the key ETFs to watch for the week of Monday, November 10.

Market Vectors Retail ETF RTH

On Friday, the results of October retail sales will be released and the consensus is for a net gain of 0.2 percent after last month's disappointing contraction. This data has the potential to impact RTH, which tracks 25 of the largest U.S.-listed retail companies by market capitalization.

Related Link: Earnings Expectations For The Week Of November 10

This ETF will also find itself influenced by the earnings results of Wal-Mart this week, as this mega-retailer makes up more than 10 percent of the total portfolio. RTH currently has $100 million in total assets and has gained 8 percent year to date.

Market Vectors Gold Miners GDX

After crashing to new year-to-date lows, gold mining stocks rebounded strongly late last week. GDX, which tracks 41 global gold mining companies, rose 8 percent on Friday and will look to build on those gains moving forward.

One item to note for this sector is the strength last week that came on the highest volume of the year, possibly signaling that institutional investors are waking up to the deep value in this space. However, despite the big move off the lows, these commodity stocks have a long way to go to recoup losses for the year.

iShares Russell 2000 ETF IWM

Small-cap stocks have been a serial underperformer this year relative to their large-cap peers. However, the broad-based index of small-cap companies in IWM has now rebounded back into positive territory for the year.

Further strength in this sector will bode well for the market moving forward and should be a key indicator of investor sentiment. IWM will be an important segment of the market to watch in the weeks ahead to see if it can play catch up before 2014 comes to a close.