Monday 12 March 2012

S&P 500 vs Sector Performances YTD

The S&P 500 index is up approximately 9.1% YTD.  However, the gains have not been equally distributed among its constituent sectors.  Below is a YTD list of the some of the sectors (as tracked by their ETFs).

Interesting to note the 3 good performers:


  • Technology, Financials, and Consumer Discretionary


The 3 middle performers:


  • Energy, Industrials, and Materials


And the 3 bottom performers:


  • Healthcare, Consumer Staples, and Utilities



For the 3 good performers, one caution is the component cause.  XLY contains significant exposure to Sears which has returned 163% YTD and skewing the numbers considerably.  That is obviously not sustainable.  XLF, the financial ETF has noticably leveled off and has failed to make much headway since beginning of Feb, essentially flat for the last 1.5 months.  XLK, the technology tracker is still doing well and likely the main component pushing the S&P up, with a significant portion of that coming from AAPL.  


Source: SPDR Sector Tracker 

S&P 500 INDEX 
Consumer Discretionary (XLY) 
Consumer Staples (XLP) 
Energy (XLE) 
Financials (XLF) 
Health Care (XLV) 
Industrials (XLI) 
Materials (XLB) 
Technology (XLK) 
Utilities (XLU) 


 9.03%
12.33% 

 3.45%

 6.73%
14.23% 

 5.02%
9.69% 

 8.81%
14.77% 
 -1.11%