In a year like 2013 it was hard not to make money. Unless you were bearish and out of stocks, you probably did pretty well. But there was a very wide range of returns from different sectors of the market, and one way to observe this is by looking at the league tables for the most popular ETFs. Below is a snapshot, ranked in order of their 1 year returns.
After a dismal performance for the last few years, solar made a great comeback and landed at #1 on the charts. There are plenty of others that did very well too.
My takeaway from this list is that it makes a lot of sense to diversify your portfolio by sprinkling a few of these specialty ETFs on top of your solid base of steady and consistent performers. I would not recommend to anyone that the way to get rich quickly is by putting all of your money into a specialized slice of the market, like solar stocks for example, hoping for a home run. But it makes sense to allocate 10% or so of your assets to niche markets, especially if you have a good understanding of what’s going on because of your job or your academic specialty. 90% of your portfolio should be boring, but 10% can and should be interesting.