Most stocks seem to enjoy falling so much that they have all but forgotten how to climb. But there are some stocks and subsequent exchange traded funds (ETFs) that have ignored this fad.

Investors have become accustomed to the red-colored trading tickers of Wall Street, but some privately held companies claim they are “thriving,” according to The New York Times.

Sageworks is a company that analyzes such things, and recently ranked the top 30 industries over the last 12 months by sales growth, including:

• Farm product raw material wholesalers, up 21.7% and cattle ranching and farming, up 19.5%; this could be because agriculture-related industries are providing “need to haves.” Crops and commodities are essential.
• Support activities for mining: up 17.8%; metal and mineral wholesalers were among the top 25 industries in sales growth over the last year.
• Petroleum and petroleum products wholesalers: up 16.3%; look at the price of oil this year, and say no more.
• Home health care services: up 14.5%; attributed to the increase in demand in this sector as Baby Boomers age.

It is only some privately owned company that have provided significant sales growth in the last year, but the sectors with which the companies belong to have also shown some recent signs of life. Could these numbers forecast better days ahead for certain ETFs, especially those that have been battered this year?

A couple of different ETFs include:

• Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (MOO): up 4.2% in the last month
  

• SPDR S&P Metals and Mining (XME): up 0.5 in the last month

• PowerShares Dynamic Food & Beverage (PBJ): down 2.3% in the last month

• Market Vectors Coal (KOL): down 3% in the last month

• iShares Dow Jones U.S. Medical Devices (IHI): down 6.3% in the last month

Tags: Agriculture, Coal, Commodity ETFs, Food & Beverage, IHI, KOL, Metals & Mining, MOO, PBJ, Sector ETFs, XME