Sector Performances and Why S&P Performance Today is Misleading

The S&P 500 had a great recovery today, recovering from being 1% down and closing only 0.25% down.  Or did it?  One curious note if you looked through sector performances is that the average stock did not recover nearly as well.  As you can see from the sector breakdowns:

Sector	Change	% down / up
Basic Materials	-0.76%
Capital Goods	-0.51%
Conglomerates	-0.81%
Cons. Cyclical	-0.29%
Cons. Non-Cyclical	-0.44%
Energy	-0.46%
Financial	-1.01%
Healthcare	-0.10%
Services	-0.33%
Technology	+0.04%
Transportation	-0.42%
Utilities	-0.34%

Source: Google


Even though the S&P ended down only 0.25%, almost none of the sectors performed well with the exception of Technology.  In fact, tech & healthcare are the only 2 sectors that were above the S&P performance.

Another look via a heat map shows the same trend.  Financials never recovered today and most other large sectors such as oil/commodities, consumer goods, conglomerates all underperformed.  Tech was the standout factor.  So be wary of today's move.  What initially looked like a strong recovery actually showed very little breadth which raises a red flag.

Source: Finviz.com