As the equities market experienced its worst start to a new year, exchange traded fund investors fled growth sectors and jumped into defensive stocks, along with betting on a valuation play.
Investors’ eyes are on the tech space this week amid a spate of fourth quarter earnings results, but the technology sector was among the most unloved area of the market so far this year. Year-to-date, the Technology Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLK) experienced almost $1.2 billion in net outflows, according to ETF.com. [A Big Earnings Week for Technology Sector ETFs]
Concerns over Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL), the largest component in tech-sector ETFs, may have dragged on broad sector play.
“The whole technology sector has fallen out of favor, and Apple is certainly a big part of that,” Bill Schultz, chief investment officer at McQueen, Ball & Associates Inc., told Bloomberg “There’s some concern that the Apple growth rate is slowing going forward. At this point, people are looking elsewhere for more reliable earnings.”