Monday's 7.4% oil drop split XLE from the natural-resources funds
On Monday, Nov. 2, an energy fund fell 4% and an income fund rose, while two natural-resources funds in the middle barely separated.
Key takeaways
On Monday, Nov. 2, West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, fell 7.4%, and the funds sold as natural resources did not fall together.
State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF XLE fell 4.0%. iShares North American Natural Resources ETF IGE fell 2.4%.
State Street SPDR S&P North American Natural Resources ETF NANR fell 1.1%, and State Street SPDR S&P Global Natural Resources ETF GNR fell 1.0%. First Trust Indxx Global Natural Resources Income ETF FTRI rose 0.4%.
NANR and GNR, the two in the middle, fell by almost the same amount. The split was at the ends.
The oil news was the same for all of them. The indexes set different mixes of oil and gas, metals, and farms and forests.
How the indexes divide natural resources
A natural-resources fund owns companies that pull something out of the ground, or that sit next to that work: oil and gas, metals, or farms and forests.
State Street says the S&P Global Natural Resources Index, which GNR tracks, is three sub-indexes, one for agriculture, one for energy and one for metals and mining, and that each equals one-third of the index. On Nov. 3 the fund held 96 holdings and $5.3 billion, and charged 0.40%.
Shell, the oil company, was the largest position at 5.5%, inside an energy business set at a third of the index. Exxon Mobil, which the fund lists as ExxonMobil Holdings, was 5.2%. Nutrien, the fertilizer maker, and BHP, the miner, were each 4.4%.
The North American fund from the same firm uses a different scale. NANR tracks the S&P BMI North American Natural Resources Index. At each quarterly rebalance, State Street says, energy is set at 45%, metals and mining at 35%, and agriculture at 20%.
Between those dates the weights move with the market. On Nov. 3, energy was 49% of the fund, and Exxon Mobil was 11.5%. The fund held $814 million and 202 holdings, and charged 0.35%.
IGE tracks a different North American index, the S&P North American Natural Resources Sector Index. As of Nov. 3, five oil and gas industries on its breakdown added up to 73% of the fund. Gold was the largest line outside that group, at 12.5%.
Net assets were $810 million, almost the same size as NANR, at a 0.37% fee, across 149 holdings. Two funds sold under the same label, and one of them is mostly an energy portfolio with a gold stake.
First Trust's fund is an income screen. The Indxx index takes the 50 highest-yielding companies in five groups, energy, materials, agriculture, water and timber, and it caps the number of securities from each group at 30%.
On Nov. 3, FTRI held $113 million and charged 0.70%. Its largest positions were TotalEnergies, the oil company, at 11.2%, Barrick Mining, a gold miner, at 9.2%, and E.ON, the German power company, at 7.3%.
AngloGold Ashanti and Gold Fields, also gold miners, were next, at 6.5% and 4.9%. American Water Works, the U.S. water utility, was 4.7%.
XLE is the energy-only comparison, not a natural-resources fund. It tracks the energy sector of the S&P 500: oil, gas and consumable fuels, plus energy equipment and services.
On Nov. 3 it held 21 holdings and $44.1 billion, and charged 0.08%. Exxon Mobil was 24.2% of it and Chevron was 18.4%, together 42.6%.
The 2026 column is the change in share price from the Dec. 31, 2025 close to the Nov. 3 close. It leaves out dividends.
What Monday's drop did
On Monday, Reuters reported that Brent crude, the international benchmark, settled at $104.77 a barrel, down $8.66, or 7.6%, and that WTI settled at $96.46, down $7.66, or 7.4%. Settlement is the official end-of-day price for a futures contract. The drop came as talks between Iranian and Qatari officials lifted hopes for an end to the eight-month U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, Reuters said.
WTI fell 7.4%. XLE, which owns the energy companies and not the barrel, fell 4.0%. IGE, with oil and gas at 73% of the portfolio as of the next day, fell 2.4%.
NANR, whose energy weight was 49% the next day, fell 1.1%. GNR, with energy set at a third, fell 1.0%. That is no separation.
FTRI rose 0.4%. Gold futures rose 1.8% on Monday, and Barrick Mining rose 2.6%.
XLE and IGE fell Monday; FTRI rose
- XLE · 95.23
- IGE · 96.63
- FTRI · 99.16
Tuesday, when oil barely moved
On Tuesday, Nov. 3, WTI settled at $96.09, down 0.4%. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Iran and the United States remained far from a deal to end the war.
The Monday order did not show up again. XLE fell 0.8%. FTRI, up the day before, fell 1.3%.
NANR fell 1.5%, the most of the group. IGE fell 1.0% and GNR fell 1.2%.
XLE fell 4% Monday; NANR fell most Tuesday
- Monday
- Tuesday
- XLE
- Monday −4.0%
- Tuesday −0.8%
- IGE
- Monday −2.4%
- Tuesday −1.0%
- NANR
- Monday −1.1%
- Tuesday −1.5%
- FTRI
- Monday +0.4%
- Tuesday −1.3%
A big year for XLE, then a longer lag for the resources funds
Through Tuesday's close, XLE was up 49.1% for the year on share price. IGE was up 28.1%, NANR 24.7% and GNR 18.8%. State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY was up 10.6%, and FTRI was up 5.7%.
Those figures leave out dividends. Through Sept. 30, First Trust's year-to-date total return, which includes the payouts, was 8.9%, against 20.6% for GNR.
Over the three years through Sept. 30, annualized total return was 22.7% for SPY. NANR came closest, at 19.0%. IGE was at 16.7%, GNR at 13.8% and FTRI at 13.5%.
The WTI futures series was up 67% for 2026 through Tuesday.
Oil fell again Wednesday morning
Around 10:25 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday, Nov. 4, WTI was at $93.89, down 2.3% from Tuesday's settlement of $96.09. The price was 9.8% below Friday's price of $104.12. Reuters reported that oil was falling as investors waited on Washington's next move in the war, after Democrats captured control of Congress in Tuesday's midterm elections.
The S&P 500 was up 1.5% at that hour. XLE was down 3.3%. IGE was down 1.5%.
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