Sector Week-in-Review: Momentum in Homebuilders and Tech

Nick Perry (Schaeffer's Investment Research) submits: After a hiatus last week (my apologies), I am back with this week's chart where we find a fairly volatile picture (click to enlarge):

Homebuilders and silver bookend the graph with relatively outsized moves, while many groups show moves near five percent. In broad strokes, transportation and retail joined technology-related funds on the upside while energy, commodities and utilities were weak.

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. In other words, it shows how they had been performing before this week's move.

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

* SPDR Homebuilders (XHB) -30.9%
* iShares GS Networking (IGN) -20.8%
* PS Semiconductors (PSI) -14.0%
* Software HOLDRS (SWH) -3.4%
* iShares DJ Transportation Average (IYT) -6.4%
* iShares GS Software (IGV) -1.1%
* iShares GS Semiconductor (IGW) -8.1%
* PS Networking (PXQ) -14.1%
* PS Retail (PMR) -4.3%
* Retail HOLDRS (RTH) -4.8%
* iShares DJ U.S. Technology (IYW) -5.3%
* NASDAQ 100 Trust (QQQQ) -6.4%

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

* iShares DJ U.S. Basic Materials (IYM) -1.7%
* SPDR-Materials (XLB) -0.7%
* Utilities HOLDRS (UTH) +8.5%
* SPDR-Utilities (XLU) +7.0%
* iShares DJ U.S. Energy (IYE) +3.3%
* SPDR-Energy (XLE) +1.1%
* iShares GS Natural Resources (IGE) +1.7%
* Oil Service HOLDRS (OIH) -6.5%
* PS Oil Services (PXJ) +0.9%
* PS Energy Exploration & Production (PXE) +4.1%
* streetTRACKS Gold (GLD) +10.5%
* iShares Silver Trust (SLV) n/a

One of the themes I have touched on recently discussed the issue of rotation. If you scan the data above, you can see that some of this week's best performing groups have been extremely weak during the past six months. In other words, it looks like we are seeing some money rotate back into beaten up groups like housing, networking, and semis. I think it will be important to keep an eye on this development to see if these groups hold these gains. If so, there might be potential opportunities.