The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: First Trust ISE-Revere Natural Gas Index Fund, United States Brent Oil Fund, iShares 1-3 Year Treasury Bond ETF, iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF and iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF

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Dec 30, 2014, 09:42 ET

CHICAGO, Dec. 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include the First Trust ISE-Revere Natural Gas Index Fund (AMEX:FCG-Free Report),United States Brent Oil Fund (AMEX:BNO-Free Report), iShares 1-3 Year Treasury Bond ETF (AMEX:SHY-Free Report),iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (AMEX:IEF-Free Report) and iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (AMEX:TLT-Free Report) .

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Here are highlights from Monday's Analyst Blog:

Top ETF Stories to Watch in 2015

The stock market across the globe has given mixed performances in 2014. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the 18,000 mark for the first time in mid-December and the S&P 500 is on the verge of crossing the 2,100 level on the back of an accelerating job market and improving economic fundamentals, a number of international economies have either slipped into recession or are struggling to reignite growth.

In particular, several events will likely spill over into 2015 and continue to impact the ETF world either in a positive or a negative way. Below, we have highlighted some of these events, which will hog investor attention in the New Year:

Oil/Energy ETFs

The broad energy space hit headlines all year round as oil price jumped to a fresh high in mid-June and then took a reverse turn slipping to a multi-year low in December. While geopolitical tensions in Russia and insurgency in Iraq propelled the oil prices and the energy ETFs higher in the first half of the year, rising U.S. shale oil production, abundant supply, slowing global demand, no cut in OPEC output, and a strong dollar pushed them to lower levels in recent months (read: Oil ETFs Crash As Crude Touches Multi-Year Low).

Whether the bear will continue to chase the energy space or will it turn around in 2015? This is THE question everywhere in the world. However, oil price is showing some strength in today's trading session on concerns over the Libyan supply disruption. As a result, investors should definitely keep a close eye on ETFs that will largely be impacted by this development.

In particular, First Trust ISE-Revere Natural Gas Index Fund (AMEX:FCG-Free Report)and United States Brent Oil Fund (AMEX:BNO-Free Report)are some of the funds that could see huge volatility. FCG, having a Zacks ETF Rank of 5 or 'Strong Sell' rating, has stolen the show this year, plunging 41.2% while XOP and OIH lost about 28% and 24.2%, respectively and have a Zacks ETF Rank of 4 or 'Sell' rating. The future-based oil ETFs – BNO and USO – declined 47.8% and 41.7%, respectively.

Russia ETFs

Russian ETFs have seen horrendous trading this year thanks to several rounds of Western sanctions imposed on the country for invading Ukraine and the oil price collapse. The Russian ruble also saw a terrible decline against the greenback, losing about 50% since June. To combat the slide in the currency and reinvigorate growth, the Russian central bank has taken various measures (read: Russia ETFs Crash: What Went Wrong in 2014?).

While direct currency intervention, minor rate hikes, and tightening supplies of the ruble did not bear any fruit, the central bank took a bold step this month by raising key interest rates rate from 10.5% to 17%, representing the steepest one-time hike in 16 years. The ruble has recovered slightly after the move but Russian economic growth still remains gloomy due to limited opportunities for investment, declining oil prices, rising inflation, weak deposit growth, soft earnings, falling consumer confidence and lack of growth drivers.

Given this, Russia ETFs remained in investors' eyes in the emerging/European market space in 2015. There are currently four non-leveraged ETFs targeting the Russian stocks, all of which currently have a Zacks ETF Rank of 5 and are down in the range of 40–50% this year.

U.S. Treasury ETFs

While short-term Treasury ETFs have stayed almost flat this year, long-term products are leading the space. This trend is unlikely to continue next year as the Fed is on track to raise interest rates given a strengthening U.S. economy. Some market experts expect the first interest rate hike since 2006 sooner than expected in mid-2015, resulting in aggressive higher yields since 2009 (read: 3 Bond ETFs to Generate Income for Your Portfolio).

According to the Wall Street message, 2015 would be disastrous for U.S. government bonds. In fact, the short end of the yield curve is rising faster than the long end and the spread between the 5-year and 30-year yields tightened to 109 bps from 220 bps at the start of the year, indicating that the yield curve is plateauing.

As such, investors should take great precaution while trading in government bonds in the coming months. The three most popular Treasury funds - iShares 1-3 Year Treasury Bond ETF (AMEX:SHY-Free Report),iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (AMEX:IEF-Free Report) and iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (AMEX:TLT-Free Report) are up 0%, 6.20%, and 22.14%, respectively. All these products have a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 or 'Hold' rating. SHY targets short end of the yield curve while IEF and TLT focus on mid-term and long-term government bonds, respectively (see: all the Government Bonds ETFs here).

Bottom Line

Investors should closely watch the developments in these spaces as we head into the next year and should tap opportunities as and when they come.

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