Sector Performance vs. the S&P 500

The S&P 500 index is not currently behaving in an attractive manner. How are the separate sectors performing relative to the index?

The following charts are four-month plots of the price of the sector divided by the price of the S&P 500 (proxy SPY) and expressed in percentage change, along with a 20-day moving average to help visualize the trend.

Of the nine sectors and four sub-sectors shown, five outperformed the S&P 500 over the last four months. They were consumer staples (XLP), utilities (XLU), healthcare (XLV), technology (XLK) and telecom (VOX). Note that the positive relative performance of XLK was apparently due entirely to the telecom sub-sector.

Consumer cyclicals (XLY) were essentially flat with the S&P 500 at +0.05% for the four months.

Insurance (KIE) has been a stronger component of the financials (XLF) than banks (KBE), although all three showed negative performance relative to the S&P 500.

Basic Materials (XLB)

Energy (XLE)

Industrials (XLI)

Consumer Staples (XLP)

Utilities (XLU)

Healthcare (XLV)

Consumer Cyclicals (XLY)

Technology (XLK)

Technology (ex Telecom) (VGT)

Telecom (VOX)

Financials (XLF)

Banks (KBE)

Insurance (KIE)

Comments

[enigmaman:]

OK, So what is the point? It was Sunny yesterday but cloudy today, so what? Some sectores were up some down in comparison to SPY, so what! Is it better to own the sector funds and not the S&P index fund Spy?

Jan 22 10:00 AM

[QVM Group:]

Enigmanan:

"So what?" is for you to decide.

It is a data report, only.

The particular data and relative performance presentation is not readily accessible to all readers of our blog, so we provided it as a courtesy for those who may find it useful or interesting for their own purposes.

Seeking Alpha publishes some data articles without conclusions, some articles with conclusions and no data, and some articles with both. This one is data only, but in manipulated format that could potentially be interesting to some readers.

Jan 22 02:29 PM

[Docsroute:]

Thank you Richard, I always like to read your articles--There's always something that I learn.

Jan 22 08:29 PM

[bsharvy:]

There's no alpha in a "data report only." Seeking Alpha *claims* it primarily publishes analysis. Seeking Alpha is a little full of it.

Jan 22 11:51 PM

[QVM Group:]

bsharvy:

SA is certainly not perfect, but they have not promised to spoon feed "alpha" to readers. Nobody can do that.

They seek to offer readers information and perspectives that the readers will use and interpret to seek alpha themselves.

Data is the first step in achieving alpha. Whether data only, or data plus opinion, or opinion without data in articles, investors owe it to themselves to do their own thinking and research.

All of the articles on this site should be no more than food for thought.

Some readers thoughts are well stimulated through data without being told what to think about that data.

Jan 23 02:29 PM