The most popular S&P 500 ETF — SPY — is currently up 10% year-to-date.  Below is a snapshot from our Trend Analyzer tool (available to Bespoke Premium subscribers) that shows S&P 500 sector ETFs and their year-to-date performance (among other stats).  As shown, eight of the eleven major sector ETFs are in the green for the year, with Technology (XLK) leading the way at +35.2%.  That’s a pretty incredible move in a pandemic year, and it shows just how powerful the Tech sector is regardless of how well the “physical” economy is doing.  The Consumer Discretionary sector (XLY) ranks second with a year-to-date gain of 25.06%, but that gain is mostly buoyed by Amazon.com (AMZN), which is easily the largest stock in the cap-weighted sector.  The only other sector that’s up more than 10% on the year is Communication Services (XLC) at +16.4%.

Materials (XLB), Health Care (XLV), Consumer Staples (XLP), Utilities (XLU) and Industrials (XLI) are the remaining sectors in the green in 2020 with gains between 0 and 10%.  On the downside, Real Estate (XLRE) is only marginally in the red with a YTD decline of 3.57%, and then you get to the two big losers on the year — Energy (XLE) and Financials (XLF).  The Financial sector (XLF) is down 17% so far this year while Energy (XLE) is down 46.6%.  The gap of more than 80 percentage points between the year’s best and worst performing sectors is something that rarely happens, but then again, 2020 has been a year like no other!  Try our Trend Analyzer tool with a two-week free trial to Bespoke Premium.