This ETF Is Winning The Iran War Trade – And It's Now In Its 11th Week Of Gains
No sector has benefited more from the Iran war than U.S. oil and gas exploration. Since the Feb. 27 close — the final session before U.S. and Israeli forces launched Operation Epic Fury —The SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (NYSE: XOP ) has surged 17.08%, leading every other U.S. industry exchange-traded fund tracked by CountryETFTracker.com . Year-to-date, XOP is up 43%, its best three-month performance since April 2020. But there’s more than just that. The XOP ETF is currently on its 11th straight week of gains — the longest winning streak in the fund’s history. Chart: XOP ETF Has Never Had 11 Straight Winning Weeks. Until Now. The 11-week streak is not just a milestone — it is unprecedented in XOP’s history. Previous record runs came during the post-COVID crude recovery and the 2022 energy supercycle. Both broke. The weekly chart above shows an almost uninterrupted vertical move beginning in January 2026, accelerating sharply at the outbreak of hostilities and continuing through Tuesday’s session. The fund’s 43% year-to-date advance puts it 23.5 percentage points ahead of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE: SPY ) over the same period — a relative performance gap not seen since April 2020, when the energy complex staged a violent recovery from pandemic lows. Best And Worst Sectors Since The Iran War Began According to CountryETFTracker.com data, the sector rotation since the start of the Iran war has been stark. Behind XOP at the top of the ranking, the VanEck Oil Refiners ETF (NYSE: Full story available on Benzinga.com
