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Weekly ETF and Stock Performance Recap – July 18, 2025

Technology led the broader market again this week as large-cap growth ETFs outperformed, while defensive sectors such as utilities posted impressive gains. Small-cap and dividend-oriented ETFs underperformed, continuing the trend seen year-to-date.

ETF Performance Summary  

Current ValuEngine reports on all covered stocks and ETFs can be viewed here.

Top 3 Stock Performers (Global)  

Top 3 Stock Performers (US)  

Strategy Note

Tech once again outpaced the market as a whole with the lowest cost Nasdaq-100 ETF, QQQM, outpacing lowest cost S&P 500 ETF, SPLG by about a 2-to-1 -weighting outperformed margin. QQQM gained 1.3% for the week while SPLG rose just over 0.6%. Cap-weighting was king again. The equally weighted S&P 500 ETF, Invesco’s RSP, lost 0.1% and S&P Small Cap 600 ETF, IJR, from the family of iShares by BlackRock lost 0.8%.

Somewhat counterintuitively on a very growth-oriented week for the market, one ETF that outgained them all last week was the Vanguard Utility Industry ETF, VPU. Its gain was 1.7%, thanks to a strong gain on Friday itself while the other ETFs in this group had mutedly mixed results. VPU also has outgained all of the others on a year-to-date basis with a 12.4% price gain compared with 10.1% for QQQM, 7.8% for SPLG and 6.0% for RSP. More counterintuitively apparently, despite the fact that about 2/3 of the market strategists we follow were predicting outperformance by small cap stocks this year, IJR has declined by 2.2% thus far. Add in the fact that IJR’s 2.7% dividend rate is more than twice that of SPLG and it underscores that utilities index ETFs and utilities stocks were the place to be thus far this year.

ValuEngine foresees this relative hierarchy continuing. Our predictive model ranks Utilities the number one sector for one-year forward returns with 4.6% followed by 4.1% for Aerospace and 3.1% for Finance. In terms of individual stocks recommended for research, our largest forecast gain, 14.3%, in the sector is an ADR from Spain. It is Iberdrola SA, an electrical and energy utility with the ticker symbol IBDRY. It is rated at 5 engines. Its dividend yield is 4.1%. Moreover, if the recent pronounced trend of the dollar weakening against the Euro continues, that would boost returns for US investors. The top two American utility stocks in terms of one-year forecast gains are: WEC Corp, the former Wisconsin Energy with ticker symbol WEC and Xcel Energy, an electric and gas utility headquartered in Minnesota with ticker symbol XEL. Both have a dividend yield of about 3.3%. Given that the scenario of abrupt geopolitical policy changes and a plethora of other uncertainties, competitive growth in a low-volatility sector such as utilities makes for an attractive alternative to stocks and ETFs in more volatile industries.

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