Notable ETF Movers of the Day 04/05: (XRT) (SMH) (GLD) Higher; (EWJ) (VXX) (FXI) Lower

• SPDR S&P Retail (NYSE: XRT) up 1.83 percent to $51.81. Led higher by Expedia Inc. (Nasdaq: EXPE) today, which is up 3.3 percent so far in the session, following a release yesterday that it is back to doing business with AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR). Additionally, Walgreen Co. (NYSE: WAG) reported a 3 percent increase in comps for March.
  
  
• Semiconductor HOLDRs (NYSE: SMH) up 3.13% to $34.88. Higher today following a big M&A move by Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), which made a $25 per share bid for National Semiconductor (NYSE: NSM) after the market closed yesterday.
  
  
• SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) up 1.12% to $141.10. Gold hit an intraday record of $1,449.70 per ounce on Comex as investors continued putting funds into metals as continued conflict in Libya, a troubled situation in Japan, and inflation fears globally are causing investors to turn to gold as a safe haven, eschewing currencies in the process.

• iShares MSCI Japan Index (NYSE: EWJ) down 1.87% to $9.97. Japan stocks lower as TEPCO continues to dump radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Additionally, Toyota (NYSE: TM) reported that North American production will be halted indefinitely until suppliers come back online. The Nikkei 225 closed 1 percent lower.
  
  
• iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (NYSE: VXX) down 1.15 percent to $28.47. The CBOE VIX is trading 3.6 percent lower today, as investors are focused on recent M&A activity, ignoring economic data which saw ISM Service index number come in short of expectations, 57.3 versus 59.5 consensus.
  
  
• iShares FTSE China 25 Index Fund (NYSE: FXI) down 0.47 percent to $46.13. China increased its interest rate for the fourth time since the financial crises ended. Investors a little leery that the 0.25 percent increase might actually do the trick in stemming the rapid growth the China has experienced over the last several years. Interest rates in China are now at 6.31 percent, from 6.06 percent earlier.

You May Also Be Interested In

• Lowe's (LOW) PT Lowered to $275 at Guggenheim
• Walmart (WMT) PT Lowered to $130 at Guggenheim
• Global S&P Futures mixed in premarket