Retail, Consumer Staples Show Strength, While Metals Weaken

Index performance this week:

Index performance year to date:

Charts: Google Finance

Sector/ETF Glance:

Last week, we saw broad-based selling, with technology as the weakest area. This week we have a less drastic skew to the downside (click to enlarge):

A little more than half (57%) of the funds on my list are showing a loss on the week, and the largest losses outweigh the largest gains. While that isn't nearly as skewed as what we saw last Friday, it does mean the market hasn't been able to significantly bounce back from that selling.

This week's strongest groups are a mix of retail and defensive stocks. The Retail HOLDRS (RTH) was helped by Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), which posted a positive earnings surprise on Tuesday. That gain inspired not only the RTH, but also seemed to lift the mood on the Street and helped the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) put in a strong showing that day. The overall enthusiasm, however, was short-lived, and the market has drifted back toward Monday's lows since then.

A look to the bottom half of the list shows that ETFs related to commodities, at least in some fashion, tended to be the weakest. Precious-metal ETFs saw the largest declines, as the streetTRACKS Gold (GLD), iShares Silver Trust (SLV), and Gold Miners ETF (GDX) lost more than 5%.