August Sector Recap

By Bill Luby | September 02, 2008 | 1:00 PM | 1 Comment

August was a month in which the S&P 500 largely drifted sideways, but there was a good deal going on in the various sectors that make up the index. The graphic below shows sector performance for the nine sector SPDRs for the first eight months of 2008 and for the month August.

On the plus side, the turnaround in the consumer discretionary sector (NYSE: XLY) is clearly responsible for much of the recent positive momentum in the SPX. Also worth noting is that four other sectors outperformed the index in August: consumer staples (NYSE: XLP), health care (NYSE: XLV), industrials (NYSE: XLI), and technology (NYSE: XLK).

As has often been the case during the past few months, when the (NSDQ: SPX) has been moving up, energy (NYSE: XLE) and materials (NYSE: XLB) have been moving in the opposite direction.

Watch the consumer for more clues about sector leadership and overall market strength in the month of September.

 

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Interesting I'm liking the consumer discretionary sector with oil retreating and the dollar stabilizing and likely heading for a multi-year move higher vs. the Euro. Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2008/09/02 - 6:37pm » reply |