After touching a peak in early August, the going became tough for the U.S. stock market thanks to volatility and heightened uncertainty. Notably, the major benchmarks, namely the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones shed 0.5% and 1.1%, respectively, in the past one month.

The long list of woes started with escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea from word of war. Now, fears of a trade war are looming large with Trump threatening to put a ban on the countries that do business with the rogue regime.

Then, Hurricane Harvey, first major hurricane in the United States in more than a decade, caused large-scale flooding along the U.S. Gulf coast, affecting transport of people and food. The storm seems to be one of the costliest natural disasters in the history of the country. The devastation did not stop there given that a new hurricane named Irma landed on the islands of the northeast Caribbean early last week and hit Florida in the weekend.

Further, an uncertain Fed policy and fears over the implementation of President Donald Trump’s pro-growth agenda continue to weigh on the stocks. The Fed is on track to unwind its $4.5 trillion balance sheet but is extremely cautious of weak inflation that might put the third interest rates hike for this year off the table. Bouts of weak economic data especially on housing and consumer prices added to the woes.

However, strong corporate earnings, still low interest rates, and improving health of economies around the world are acting as tailwinds and will continue to drive the stock market this year. Additionally, the economy has been on a solid growth path buoyed by an impressive labor market, increase in wages and higher consumer spending.

Given this, several ETFs saw a spike in the month while some were laggards. Below, we have highlighted some of them:

Best ETFs

Sprott Junior Gold Miners ETF (SGDJ – Free Report)

Acting as leveraged plays on gold price, gold mining ETFs are the largest beneficiaries of the trend as they tend to experience huge gains than their bullion cousins. That said, SGDJ stole the show over the past one month gaining 18%. This ETF targets the small-cap segment of the gold mining industry by tracking the Sprott Zacks Junior Gold Miners Index. The benchmark utilizes the factor-based methodology that seeks to emphasize companies with the strongest relative revenue growth and price momentum.