Meanwhile, consumer discretionary, industrials, information technology and materials sectors have been outperforming in all four benchmark Indices. Since the most recent 2011 low on October 3, the broader market gained 19.8%, whereas materials is up 30.7%, industrials is 28.5% higher, financials gained 25.3% and consumer discretionary added 22.4%.
- SPDR Consumer Discretionary Select Sector Fund ETF (NYSEArca: XLY): up 6.2% year-to-date
- SPDR Industrial Select Sector Fund ETF (NYSEArca: XLI): up 8.0% year-to-date
- SPDR Financial Select Sector Fund ETF (NYSEArca: XLF): up 8.7%% year-to-date
- SPDR Materials Select Sector Fund ETF (NYSEArca: XLB): up 11.0%.% year-to-date
The positive performance is attributed to “the improvement in U.S. economic data, the reduced fear of a hard landing in China, and the favorable impact of the ECB’s back-door purchase of sovereign debt on the 10-year yields in countries most at risk of default,” Stovall said.
Considering that the S&P 500 saw a “near miss” correction after dropping 19.4%, “the performances of the S&P 500 and its sectors could be viewed from the perspective of a very early bull market, not just a recovery from a correction in the third year bull market,” Stovall added.
Looking ahead, however, February has historically been a bad month, coming in second to worst only to September’s performance, since 1945. Additionally, it should be noted that through the 16 presidential election years since 1948, the S&P 500 recorded an average decline in February, followed by strong gains in March.
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Max Chen contributed to this article.