There has been a clear changing of the guard in April and chartists can see this change with a PerfChart on two different timeframes. The first PerfChart shows performance for the nine sectors SPDRs and SPY for the first three months of the year. Notice that the Consumer Staples SPDR and Utilities SPDR were the leaders. The Technology SPDR and Industrials SPDR were also performing well. The Finance SPDR and the HealthCare SPDR were the clear laggards because both were down around 5% in the first quarter.
The situation changed quite dramatically in April. Finance and healthcare went from laggards to leaders with big gains the last three weeks. The Materials SPDR and Energy SPDR were already performing well in the first quarter and both performed even better the last three weeks. Notice that they are up more the last three weeks than in the first three months of the year. Technology and utilities are the big losers this month, and consumer staples is underperforming the market. It is a rather strange rotation because tech and consumer discretionary are lagging, but there is enough sector strength to keep the broad market uptrend in place.
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--Arthur Hill CMT
Plan your Trade and Trade your Plan
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