MXI is down 13.1% year-to-date and 12.9% in the last month, even as most companies included have a positive future outlook.
The SPDR Retail (XRT) and the Retail HOLDRs (RTH) have outperformed major U.S. benchmarks this year. Many market analysts feel as though these funds have been able to weather the storm by riding on the success of the discounter giant Wal Mart (WMT). Examining the long term trends of these funds could lead one to ignore what media says about the domestic retail sector. If these funds break above their 200-day moving averages, trusting these long-term trends could be much more promising.
XRT is down 3.8% year-to-date and RTH is up 3.9% for the yearl in the last month, the are respectively up 16.4% and 13%.
