Don’t get burned by Energy
This year was not kind to investors investing in the energy sector. The sector is the worst performing sector year to date, as measured by the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) from State Street, with negative 7.43% for the year and severely underperforming the S&P 500 ETF (“SPY”) by 14.79%. Sector Ticker YTD Return YTD over SPY Technology XLK 12.70% 5.34% Discretionary XLY 11.74% 4.38% Financials XLF 11.12% 3.76% Healthcare …
Beat the Market With Sector Rotation
Everyone wants to outpace the market, usually defined as theĂ‚Â Standard & Poor’s 500 index. While the stock market never guarantees you aĂ‚Â sure-fire win, there’s a clever approach that has triumphed in the last dozenĂ‚Â years. It involves rotating into the best-performing sectors annually. Last month, I wrote about this interesting investment strategy, which a pioneer of sector investing, Standard & Poor’s Sam Stovall, calls: “There’s Always a Bull …
Not Time to Panic
After a beautiful first quarter, which brought the S&P 500 a wonderful 12% return, things turned drastically downward. So far this month, the S&P 500 is down 2.82%. What is going on? Are we in for continued downward spiral or is this a correction? If you look at the first-quarter numbers, they all reflect rebound in economy and show growth. The top performing sectors showed continued stabilization of the financial …
There’s Always a Bull Market Somewhere
“Taking a buy-and-hold approach with sectors is like buying a Ferrari and then driving behind a school bus the rest of your life,” so begins Chapter 5 of Sam Stovall’s book, The Seven Rules of Wall Street. Without a doubt, if I had a Ferrari I would not want to drive behind a school bus ever. So, clearly I was intrigued by this. Here’s a bit of background about Sam …
Curb Your Worries
The market has dropped like a rock since Feb. 29, with the S&P 500 falling 1.42%, and it feels as though there is more room to go. Should we panic? Is this a beginning of the new “risk-off” period? The beginning of the year was stellar — the “January effect” rolled into some kind of February effect, and the S&P 500 gained an incredible 8.59% for both months. But it …
A Dangerous Game
There’s no doubt about it: Energy is on the rise. The space, as measured by the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE), is this month’s best-performing sector. The fund has gained 4.2% as of Feb. 15, outperforming the S&P 500 by 1.8%. Sector ETFs, Month-to-Date Performance Source: The Rockledge Group That’s quite a difference from last month’s performance, when it was close to the bottom of the pile, underperforming S&P 500 …