Homebuilders, Real Estate Sectors Weakest Following Fed Move

This week we find a pullback, as more 90% of the ETFs I track are lower:

The big news this week was, of course, the quarter-point rate cut by the Fed and the market selloff that followed. If you missed the action on Tuesday this post shows the intraday chart of the action as well as how the indices ended that day. We did see a bounce back attempt on Wednesday morning amid chatter of plan by the Fed to battle the credit crunch but that enthusiasm faded as the day wore on. The rest of the week was more or less a listless drift.

The US Oil Fund (USO) and PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy Fund (PBW) are tied for the lead with minor strength in telecom and energy-related funds such as the Oil Service HOLDRS (OIH) and the SPDR-Energy (XLE).

A look at the bottom half of the list shows real estate and homebuilders at the very bottom but they weren't materially weaker. In other words, the selling was rather broad based and not focused on any one area, though it is worth pointing out that the SPDR Homebuilders (XHB) fund was last week's stand-out leader. The XHB bounced from an all-time-low last week amid a plan by the government to freeze some subprime rates. This week's drop gave back a good portion of last week's gains.

Index performance this week:

Index performance year to date:

Comments

[Joseph Trup...:]

In that oil is the spiking gainer last week, I was curious if you had
any information on Hess Corp. (HES).
Seems this company is in the oil exploration industry and as it appears
to me, they are firing on all cylinders.
If you have any info whatsoever regarding this company, it would be
truly appreciated.

Thankyou

2007 Dec 15 04:33 PM

[garlicbulb:]

You should add XLU to your sectors

2007 Dec 16 01:32 AM

[Carl leason:]

All you need to know is on charts,...compare XLE, HES and XOM.
If that doesn't answer your questions, nothing will.
Energy stocks are all doing well as is SLB (Schlumberger ),..also take a look at FSLR ( First Solar ) solar energy company,..all energy sectors are on an upswing. !
You can track them all on the Free "MarketBrouser". Check it out !
Almost everything else is in the pits ! But the demand for energy is ever increasing, keep in mind that every stock or fund has it's ups and downs but look at even the last 2 years at those mentioned above,..if you invested in any of those funds or stocks, you would have made a fortune and there isn't going to be any let up in demand , ever !LC

2007 Dec 16 07:51 PM