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Asia's stockmarkets dipped on Friday, with tech shares tumbling on deepening Sino-U.S. tensions, while the dollar was set to seal its longest winning streak in nine years as investors braced for U.S. interest rates to stay higher for longer.

Investors probably can't wait for the week to end, with worries over China's curbs on iPhones and the dollar's resurgence in the past few weeks casting a long shadow over the markets.

China stocks fell on Friday, as investor optimism toward the world's second-largest economy waned after the authorities' stimulus policy, while a weakening yuan pressured the stock market further.

The tech sector is back in 2023, riding the excitement regarding AI and other technological advances to massive gains. The Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF ( NYSEARCA:XLK) , which invests in the technology sector of the S&P 500 ( SPX ), has returned a scintillating 42.6% year-to-date. But this type of stellar performance is nothing new for this top tech ETF, which has been rewarding its investors with excellent returns for many years. So, let’s take a look at this long-term winner that is still attractive.   Stellar Track Record XLK has established itself as a consistent, long-term winner. How good has XLK’s performance been over the years?  As of the end of the most recent quarter, XLK put up an impressive annualized total return of 19.5% over the past three years. Zooming out to five years and 10 years, the fund has managed to return over 20% on an annualized basis over each time frame, with outstanding total annualized returns of 21.5% over the past five years and 20.7% over the past 10 years. These returns are great on their own accord, but how do they stack up against the broader market over the long term? As of the end of the most recent quarter, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF ( NYSEARCA:VOO) , a good proxy for the S&P 500, returned 14.6% on an annualized basis over the past three years. Over the past five years, it has returned 12.3% on an annualized basis, and over the past 10 years, it has posted an annualized return of 12.8%. These are solid returns, but XLK’s returns over each of the three time frames are superior, putting it among one of the rare ETFs that can say it has decisively beaten the market over the long run. A Cost-Effective Option XLK has given investors a market-beating performance over the past decade, and it does so for a very reasonable price, with an expense ratio of just 0.10%. This means that an investor putting $10,000 into XLK today would pay just $10 in fees in year one. Assuming the ETF returns 5% per year going forward and the fee remains 0.10%, this same investor would pay a reasonable $128 in fees over the course of the next 10 years.  It's worth noting that XLK's expense ratio is significantly lower than that of the Invesco QQQ Trust ( NASDAQ:QQQ) , the largest and most popular tech-centric ETF, which charges a still-reasonable 0.20%.   XLK's Holdings  XLK sports 67 holdings, covering the technology sector of the S&P 500. Below, you’ll find an overview of XLK’s top 10 holdings from TipRanks’ holdings tool. Despite the fact that it has 67 holdings, this is a fairly concentrated fund, as its top 10 holdings account for 69.5% of assets, and its top two holdings, Apple ( NASDAQ:AAPL ) and Microsoft ( NASDAQ:MSFT ), combine to make up more than 44%. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but investors should be aware that XLK has a lot of exposure to these two stocks.  Part of the reason that XLK has outperformed the market over the years is that its top holdings include some of the most innovative companies in the U.S. market (not to mention globally), creating the products, technologies, and applications that have revolutionized the way many people work and live their day-to-day lives. This is true whether it’s consumer-facing products from the likes of Apple and Microsoft, enterprise-facing products from Adobe ( NASDAQ:ADBE ), Salesforce ( NYSE:CRM ) and Oracle ( NYSE:ORCL ), or the semiconductor companies that make many of these applications possible, like Nivida ( NASDAQ:NVDA ), Broadcom ( NASDAQ:AVGO ) and Advanced Micro Devices ( NASDAQ:AMD ).  You may notice that several big names are conspicuously absent from XLK’s portfolio. The likes of Amazon ( NASDAQ:AMZN ), Meta Platforms ( NASDAQ:META ), Alphabet ( NASDAQ:GOOG ) ( NASDAQ:GOOGL ), and Tesla ( NASDAQ:TSLA ), are not part of XLK’s portfolio. This is because while we often think of them as tech stocks, the S&P index classifies Meta Platforms and Alphabet within communications services, and they can be found within the Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund ( NYSEARCA:XLC) . Meanwhile, Amazon and Tesla are classified as consumer discretionary companies and can be found within the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SDPR Fund ( NYSEARCA:XLY) , where they combine to make up more than 40% of the fund’s holdings. An Outperform Smart Score Rating TipRanks’ Smart Score system rates XLK’s top holdings highly. The Smart Score is a proprietary quantitative stock scoring system created by TipRanks. It gives stocks a score from 1 to 10 based on eight market key factors. A score of 8 or above is equivalent to an Outperform rating. As you can see in the table above, an impressive eight out of XLK’s top 10 holdings have Outperform-equivalent Smart Scores of 8 or higher. XLK itself features an Outperform-equivalent ETF Smart Score of 9.  Is XLK Stock a Buy, According to Analysts?  Turning to Wall Street, XLK earns a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 55 Buys, 12 Holds, and no Sell ratings assigned in the past three months. The average XLK stock price target of $199.81 implies 15.9% upside potential. Looking Ahead XLK has put up a banner performance in 2023. Still, this outstanding performance is nothing new -- it is one of the rare ETFs that has soundly beaten the broader market over a long period of time. The ETF enjoys favorable views from analysts and an excellent rating from TipRanks’ Smart Score System. However, investors should be aware that while XLK owns many of today’s tech companies, it doesn’t own some of the archetypical technology stocks like Meta Platforms or Amazon, as these are grouped into different sectors by the S&P. Nevertheless, XLK’s investor-friendly expense ratio, impeccable track record, and strong portfolio of top technology companies make it look like a solid long-term bet.  Disclosure

The shares of several major Apple suppliers fell on Friday, following reports that China had widened curbs on use of iPhones by state employees, fanning fears about sales prospects in one of the U.S. company's biggest markets.

Japan's Nikkei share average fell for a second session on Friday, tracking overnight Wall Street losses as worries about tighter U.S. Federal Reserve policy and a Chinese iPhone ban weighed on sentiment.

Asia's stockmarkets dipped on Friday, with tech shares tumbling on deepening Sino-U.S. tensions, while the dollar was set to seal its longest winning streak in nine years as investors braced for U.S. interest rates to stay higher for longer.

Shares in Taiwan's TSMC, a major Apple supplier, dropped around 1% on opening on Friday after reports that China has widened curbs on iPhone use by state employees.

At the moment the Zacks Instruments-Control Industry in is the top 1% of over 250 Zacks industries.

Researchers at digital watchdog group Citizen Lab said on Thursday they found spyware they linked to Israeli firm NSO that exploited a newly discovered flaw in Apple devices.

SoftBank Group Corp's Arm Holdings Plc on Thursday told potential investors in its roughly $5 billion initial public offering that cloud computing expansion and royalty revenue represented major growth areas for the chip designer.

GAM3S.GG announced the closure of a $2 million seed round led by Mechanism Capital with the participation of major Web3 venture capitals and angel investors. The fresh capital will help the platform, formerly known as Polkastarter Gaming, to scale and grow the GAM3S.GG gaming superapp into the “IGN for Web3 gaming,” as claimed by its investors. The influx of established gaming giants is bound to light up the Web3 gaming stage. Zynga announced its Web3 game Sugartown, while Ubisoft is looking to jump on the Web3 train with its PvP tactical RPG (role-playing game) title Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles. As more players and projects are flocking into the Web3 space, the lack of quality content regarding Web3 gaming becomes more apparent.  Since accessibility is a key promise of Web3, bringing actual games and related content, such as news, guides, and other curated stories, side by side sounds like the next logical step. Web2 heavyweights like Apple ( NASDAQ:AAPL ) or Alphabet ( NASDAQ:GOOGL ) carried mobile gaming from a nascent industry to a massive ecosystem that generates over $90 billion annually by turning smartphone users into mobile gamers with their curated content on their respective mobile app stores. “The gaming industry is at a crossroads,” said GAM3S.GG co-founder and CEO Omer Ghanem, adding, “While Web3 offers new exciting possibilities, the lack of quality content and a singular destination for all your Web3 gaming needs has left many gamers lost.” Blockchain Gaming Meets Web3 Content GAM3S.GG is a platform where direct access to over 200 games listed across 15 blockchain networks meets editorial content like news and game guides. Launched in November 2022, the platform onboarded over 60,000 users. The platform also hosted the first and the largest award show for Web3 games last December, called the GAM3 Awards, which received over 250,000 votes and was watched by 140,000 unique viewers in the live broadcast. The team aims to use the funds from the seed round to bring in the next 100 million users to Web3 gaming by providing an all-in-one hub with GAM3S.GG superapp. This way, both newcomers and seasoned players can explore what’s going on in the Web3 space with news, guides, and other curated content from one simple screen.  Touching upon the urgency of a Web3 gaming hub, Ghanem stressed, “Traditional gaming has its IGN and Kotaku, yet the industry isn't ready for the change that blockchain-powered titles present, and if we wait for them to step in, we would lose potential early adopters and valuable progress — and that's why GAM3S.GG was born.” A New Channel for Web3 Game Developers to Present Projects The platform also provides a new channel for Web3 game developers to present their projects. Mechanism Capital Partner Ken addressed the challenges of building Web3 games, especially gaming hubs and aggregators. Ken stated, “Finding the win will require teams to take us past the feature sets we have been stuck with for years and the ability to understand incumbent playbooks and evolve them with aggressive experimentation.”  Aside from Mechanism Capital, GAM3S.GG scored backing from Polygon ( MATIC-USD ), Double Peak, ArkStream Capital, LD Capital, ROK Capital, Hyperithm, Snackclub, and many others for its seed round. Shreyansh Singh, Head of Investments at Polygon, highlighted the value of platforms that offer curated content and guides. “We've worked closely with the [GAM3S.GG] team over the past 18 months, and investing in them isn't just about backing a platform; it's about championing a vision where Web3 gaming is accessible, quality games rise above the noise, and where gamers have a trusted compass in this new frontier,” Singh added. To increase the accessibility of blockchain games, developers are working on adding new features. According to the GAM3S.GG team, user-centric features such as social logins, player-owned item management, progression rewards, and in-game progress tracking are coming to the superapp — besides the convenience of playing Web3 games available directly on the platform. Disclosure 

What happened Shares of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) were curiously on the rise today, up 3.2% in Thursday trading even as most other semiconductor stocks were down markedly on the day.

What you need to know… The S&P 500 Index ($SPX ) (SPY ) Thursday closed down -0.32%, the Dow Jones Industrials Index ($DOWI ) (DIA ) closed up +0.17%, and the Nasdaq 100 Index ($IUXX ) (QQQ ) closed down -0.73%. Stocks on Thursday settled mixed, with the S&P 500...

Global stock indexes were mostly lower on Thursday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq falling with shares of Apple, and the U.S. dollar advanced after weaker-than-expected U.S. jobless claims data.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell on Thursday, with the biggest drag from Apple and a sell-off in chip stocks over concerns about China's iPhone curbs, while a fall in weekly U.S. jobless claims fed worries about interest rates and sticky inflation.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell on Thursday, with the biggest drag from Apple and weakness in chip stocks over concerns about China's iPhone curbs, while a fall in weekly U.S. jobless claims fed worries about interest rates and sticky inflation.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell on Thursday, with the biggest drag from Apple and weakness in chip stocks over concerns about China's iPhone curbs, while a fall in weekly U.S. jobless claims fed worries about interest rates and sticky inflation.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett recently picked up stakes in homebuilder stocks like Lennar, NVR, and D.R. Horton, even as mortgage rates hover near multi-decade highs. What's the takeaway for investors?

Worried about a top-heavy S&P 500? You’re not alone – concentration risk is a key theme for investors and market watchers right now. The S&P 500, up 16.3% YTD, continues to offer a nice investment opportunity, but a significant over-reliance on just a few tech names creates some serious risk. Investors and advisors may want [...] Read more at ETFTrends.com.