These ‘lucky seven’ ETFs have left the S&P 500 in the dust MarketWatch 1/23/2021 HOWARD GOLD'S NO-NONSENSE INVESTING Late last year, I did a deep dive into how sector funds had done, and I stumbled upon the astonishing outperformance of four sector ETFs that rose at least five-fold from the start of 2007, when several were opened. Three other sector and niche funds I track returned more than six times investors’ money over those 14 years. So, altogether, the seven exchange traded funds beat the SPDR S&P 500 ETF by at least 160 percentage points. (SPY tracks the benchmark S&P 500 Index ) Not surprisingly, technology ETFs were standouts, alongside a biotechnology ETF and one that focuses on the largest initial public offerings (IPOs). An equally weighted health-care ETF and a consumer cyclical sector fund round out the list.