Notable ETF Movers of the Day 10/06: UNG, USO, XLE Higher; XRT, SMH, VXX Lower

• United States Natural Gas (NYSE: UNG) up 2.63% to $6.17. Might be seeing a little upside from GE (NYE: GE) making a stronger move into nat gas with the $3 billion acquisition of Dresser, Inc. Cooler weather across the Eastern U.S. and a 22% dip since the start of August may also be contributing factors.
  
  
• United States Oil (NYSE: USO) up 1.39% to $36.59. Oil futures are a little mixed today amid mixed EIA data showing a 3.1 million barrel rise in inventories for the week ended October 1, 2010, gasoline inventories fell 2.6 million barrels, and distillates also fell 1.1 million barrels. The drops in gasoline and distillates were larger than anticipated.
  
  
• Energy Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLE) up 1.04% to $58.02. The third ETF trading higher on this mixed market day is for energy. Higher today on aforementioned data, Marathon (NYSE: MRO) is leading the pack after announcing the roughly $900 million sale by its subsidiary of their Minnesota downstream assets to ACON Investments. MRO shares are up 1.75% today.

• SPDR S&P Retail (NYSE: XRT) down 0.59% to $41.97. A mixed bag in the retail sector today. Investors are taking profits from priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN), which has seen a 95% pop since at least the start of July, and Family Dollar (NYSE: FDO) announced a $250 million accelerated stock buyback. PCLN shares are down 1.95% and FDO is up 0.60%.
  
  
• Semiconductor HOLDRs (NYSE: SMH) down 0.93% to $27.83. May be seeing additional downside as Morgan Stanley downgraded Xlinx (Nasdaq: XLNX) and Altera (Nasdaq: ALTR) from Equal Weight to Underweight. Both are down nearly 2%.
  
  
• iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (NYSE: VXX) down 1.06% to $16.26. The CBOE VIX is trading slightly lower today as investors are continuing the September rally into October. The Dow is up 0.18%, Nasdaq is 0.51% lower, and the S&P 500 is just about flat in early afternoon trading. Investors may be seeking a little shelter in commodities and treasuries ahead of the September nonfarm payroll report this Friday, as the ADP jobs report showed a 39K decline for September.

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