Wall Street delivered an upbeat performance last week, with theSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY delivering 1.6%, SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust DIA advancing about 1%, and Invesco QQQ Trust, Series 1 QQQ gaining 1.6%.
The key corporate event last week was the release of NVIDIA NVDA earnings. NVIDIA beat overall but offered a less lofty guidance. Shares of NVDA gained a moderate 1.9% last week (read: Forget Guidance Woes: Buy Semiconductor ETFs on NVDA’s Dip).
Tesla TSLA shares gained 3.5% last week on talks that Donald Trump may ease regulations for self-driving cars. The news weighed on Uber UBER (down 0.1%) and Lyft LYFT (down 4.4%) stocks last week, though the duo rebounded to close out the week.
Overall, it was a winning week for Bitcoin, artificial intelligence (AI) and gold. STKD Bitcoin & Gold ETF BTGD has added 16.3% last week. Below we highlight last week’s winning exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from bitcoin, AI and gold.
Leveraged Bitcoin ETF 2x Bitcoin Strategy ETF BITX surged 25.4% last week, while the regular ETF ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF ARKB jumped 12.4%. Other bitcoin ETFs also followed suit. Many strategists expect bitcoin to hit the $1,00,000-mark this year as the cryptocurrency already hit the $98K-mark last week. This milestone follows a surge of over 122% so far in 2024, marking a spectacular year of growth.
Several factors are fueling Bitcoin’s record-breaking run. The main factor is the Trump trade. Potential initiatives under such a presidency might include more supportive regulations for the crypto industry in place of a crackdown and the establishment of a national Bitcoin reserve.
Along with Trump trade, last week, crypto enthusiasts celebrated the resignation of the SEC Chair Gary Gensler, effective January. This would pave the way for improved relations between the cryptocurrency industry and Washington regulators. During his tenure, Gary Gensler frequently clashed with major cryptocurrency companies, with the SEC filing lawsuits against industry leaders like Coinbase.
Options on BlackRock’s popular iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF IBIT also began trading on the Nasdaq last week. Bitcoin ETF IBIT traded 73,000 options contracts in the first 60 minutes of trading on Tuesday, Nasdaq told CNBC, putting the fund on the top 20 of the most active non-index options (read: Bitcoin to Hit $2,00,000 in 2025? ETFs in Focus).
Thanks to the AI boom, Global X Hydrogen ETF HYDR and Defiance Next Gen H2 ETF HDRO each added about 12% last week. While regular fossil-fuel energy has been a source of AI’s energy requirements, demand for clean energy is also rising. In this regard, demand for Hydrogen has been surging.
