The sweeping financial reform bill is now a law. While most people know what it’s supposed to mean for Wall Street banks, fewer, perhaps, understand what it will mean for consumers and consumer ETFs.

The bill includes measures that will provide the Feds with new power, allow the government to shut down large financial companies on the verge of failure, change the rules on how financial firms engages risky and speculative behavior and give shareholders a greater voice in executive pay, writes Miranda for Financial Highway.

It’s no secret: the retail sector and its exchange traded funds are hurting. Blame high unemployment, a low vote of confidence in the economy and generally tepid consumer spending. But there’s still hope to be had.

There are two areas of consumer spending that are holding up relatively well: spending by those who are scaling back to the basics, and spending by those who have the means to throw around the cash. You can play both types of consumers easily with ETFs.

In a significant way, the affluent of this nation have helped pull our economy out of the recession - well, as much as we have come. But recent data suggests that the rich have reined in spending as fears mount over the sustainability of our recovery. Right now, the future is uncertain, and that uncertainty has been reflected in the performance of ETFs in recent months.

According to Motoko Rich of The New York Times, the highest income households have pulled back spending in part because of global economic instability, especially in Europe, and in part because of volatile markets.