Sector Performance During Market Rallies

The subject of my most recent article, soon to be published, is the opposite of my last one.  Last time I did some number checking on how defensive sectors perform during downturns (which may or may not be happening now).  But when the market is rising, how do the various sectors perform?

Here are some of the raw numbers:

Rallies	S&P	Industrials	Materials	Cons. Disc.	Tech	Health	Utilities	Cons. Stpl	Financials	Energy	Bonds
Dates	SPY	XLI	XLB	XLY	XLK	XLV	XLU	XLP	XLF	XLE	AGG
	%Gain
Nov-12	15.87%	17.37%	11.68%	18.83%	9.02%	20.49%	18.38%	18.46%	20.36%	14.01%	0.34%
Jun-12	15.54%	13.71%	16.38%	14.29%	15.85%	12.07%	2.93%	8.27%	22.50%	24.12%	0.62%
Dec-11	14.95%	13.16%	13.34%	17.74%	20.19%	11.18%	0.59%	7.90%	25.54%	7.52%	0.40%
Sep-10	29.11%	36.32%	33.39%	33.74%	31.46%	17.95%	5.90%	14.31%	27.43%	51.81%	-2.05%
Mar-09	72.66%	97.14%	91.35%	91.45%	76.77%	51.39%	43.00%	42.79%	148.89%	56.83%	7.46%
Mar-07	13.60%	19.20%	20.38%	7.49%	18.29%	9.33%	8.33%	7.61%	5.96%	30.86%	-1.05%
Jul-06	18.83%	15.04%	26.13%	27.35%	25.28%	15.22%	17.52%	11.46%	19.26%	4.79%	5.43%
Oct-05	13.99%	22.59%	35.15%	12.40%	10.45%	0.30%	5.49%	8.38%	19.93%	24.36%	0.07%
Oct-04	10.34%	11.40%	10.96%	12.50%	10.10%	11.32%	6.69%	9.02%	11.78%	-1.14%	-0.08%
Mar-03	45.27%	54.58%	51.87%	54.73%	60.70%	24.68%	40.02%	23.09%	53.26%	35.33%
Avg	25.0%	30.1%	31.1%	29.1%	27.8%	17.4%	14.9%	15.1%	35.5%	24.8%	1.2%
STD	0.20	0.27	0.25	0.26	0.23	0.14	0.15	0.11	0.42	0.19	0.03
Median	15.7%	18.3%	23.3%	18.3%	19.2%	13.6%	7.5%	10.2%	21.4%	24.2%	0.%

You can see how incredibly the 2003 and 2009 rallies were.  In fact, the 2009 rally was so extreme that they really messed with the results, especially the 150% gain in the financials.  I had to take the 2009 numbers out of the averages in the article to make it realistic.

I'm surprised how poor energy fares actually.  Always thought growing economies would need the energy with the materials to grow.  Materials looks like the historical winner...but not in today's rally.

These numbers were actually to the mid of last week so the numbers don't even take into account the crazy drop materials just took today.  And unusually, defensives are doing really really well in this rally, not quite sure what to make of it.  As you can see, in all previous rallies, they underperformed (red indicates underperformed the S&P).