It was quite a change of fortune last week on the sector front. Gold stocks, which had been hugging the bottom for a few weeks, made their way to the top of the pile over the past five sessions. As tempting as it would be to jump on the hot spot that’s got such a great track record anyway, you should know the reasons gold stocks had done so well up until about a month ago (the U.S. dollar and inflation worries, mostly) have NOT rematerialized. Last week’s pop was more hype than fundamentals.

On the other end of the spectrum were transportation stocks, losing -1.13%….. another major reversal of fortune.

Sector Rank

All that being said, the most reliable bull trends are playing out in the basic materials, consumer discretionary, and consumer staples sectors. That wasn’t clear with last week’s numbers alone, but we’re seeing that shape up for the last three weeks or so on the sector comparison chart.

Sector Comparison

On the market cap and style side, size didn’t seem to matter much last week, but style has continued to make a stunning difference in terms of results. Mid caps do have a decisive edge in the bigger picture, while small caps seem to falling by the wayside now.
Style/Cap Rank

That being said, the growth/value contest is no contest as at all. It hasn’t been in a long, long time. You can somewhat feel this on the ranking table above, but the actual percentage comparison below really drives the point home….. growth is whipping value.

And again, here we can see the incredible strength of mid caps, and the lagging (relative) nature of small caps right now.
Style/Cap Comparison

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