The major indexes have been setting recent-era (since 2000) or all-time highs.
But the Materials sector has been struggling. XLB, the ETF whose top-10 holdings include E. I. duPont, Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Praxair, PPG Industries, and International Paper, has not only not set new highs, but is showing high volume on down days:
The sectors does have a good track record over the next several months. The next 7 weeks have produced only one loss in the past 15 years:
But going through the top-10 holdings list I found that only number 10, International Paper (IP), was setting new highs. The other 9 are struggling.
As signs are emerging that the economy is slowly improving (see Growing appetite to eat out indicative of improving economy), the stocks of companies providing the materials needed for industrial growth are weak.
Checking the seasonal track records of the individual top-10 holdings, there have been good gains in past years. But this year, only a paper company is drawing investor interest.
Of course, there's much more you need to know and many more stocks you can capitalize upon each and every day. To find out more, please click on the following link: www.markettamer.com/seasonal
By Gregg Harris, MarketTamer Chief Technical Strategist
Copyright (C) 2014 Stock & Options Training LLC
Unless indicated otherwise, at the time of this writing, the author has no positions in any of the above-mentioned securities.
Gregg Harris is the Chief Technical Strategist at MarketTamer.com with extensive experience in the financial sector.
Gregg started out as an Engineer and brings a rigorous thinking to his financial research. Gregg's passion for finance resulted in the creation of a real-time quote system and his work has been featured nationally in publications, such as the Investment Guide magazine.
As an avid researcher, Gregg concentrates on leveraging what institutional and big money players are doing to move the market and create seasonal trend patterns. Using custom research tools, Gregg identifies stocks that are optimal for stock and options traders to exploit these trends and find the tailwinds that can propel stocks to levels that are hidden to the average trader.
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