Sector Week-in-Review: Oil and Internet Lead Market Down

Nick Perry (Schaeffer's Investment Research) submits: Last week, we saw a strong bias to the downside as two-thirds of my list lost two percent or more. This week we find that the downward skew continues:

A number of groups bounced back this week but more lost ground than advanced. Also, the magnitude of the losses outweighed the gains as the smallest lost on this graph was still more than the biggest gain. It looks as if the gains were concentrated in defensive and interest-rate-sensitive stocks, as we see that utilities, healthcare, and financials dominant the top of the list.

At the bottom of the list we find commodities-related funds intermixed with some tech and housing. Semis have struggled for sometime and this week we find the Semiconductor HOLDRS Trust (SMH) tagging a new annual low, as it hits levels not seen since 2004.

For a longer-term perspective, the bullets below show how the ETFs listed above have faired during the past six months, prior to this week.

Prior Six-Month Returns for This Week's Top Performing Sector Exchange-Traded Funds:

* Pharmaceutical HOLDRS (PPH) -3.1%
* SPDR-Health Care (XLV) -7.4%
* Regional Bank HOLDRS (RKH) +2.3%
* SPDR-Utilities (XLU) +0.4%
* Utilities HOLDRS (UTH) -0.1%
* iShares DJ U.S. Healthcare (IYH) -7.4%
* iShares DJ U.S. Utilities (IDU) +0.6%
* PS Utilities (PUI) +4.1%
* SPDR Dividend ETF (SDY) -0.8%
* SPDR-Financial (XLF) -1.7%
* SPDR-Consumer Staples (XLP) +2.6%
* iShares DJ Select Dividend (DVY) -0.3%

Prior Six-Month Returns for This Week's Bottom Performing Sector Exchange-Traded Funds:

* PS Energy Exploration & Production (PXE) -0.2%
* iShares GS Semiconductor (IGW) -18.8%
* iShares DJ U.S. Energy (IYE) +4.0%
* Semiconductor HOLDRS (SMH) -20.8%
* iShares GS Natural Resources (IGE) +3.7%
* SPDR-Energy (XLE) +3.9%
* iShares Silver Trust (SLV) n/a
* PS Semiconductors (PSI) -12.5%
* streetTRACKS Gold (GLD) +19.2%
* Internet HOLDRS (HHH) -27.3%
* PS Oil Services (PXJ) -1.9%
* Oil Service HOLDRS (OIH) +1.3%