Tuesday, April 21, 2009

A Future Race Between Energy and Technology For Market Leadership?

Bespoke Invest has another set of great charts shown below. They reveal of the fluid dynamics of the composite weightings of the S & P 500.

Since the latest rally, the mangled financial sector has made a significant move to regain some of its lost grounds.

Although what really caught our eyes is the seeming emergence of a new leadership seen in the technology sector.

From Bespoke, ``After representing nearly a quarter of the S&P 500 at its peak, the Financial sector's weighting in the index fell all the way to 8.88% on March 9th. Since then, however, the sector has regained some market share and now represents 11.78% of the index. This share gain of 32.66% is by far the biggest jump for any sector off the 3/9 lows. Consumer Discretionary increased its weighting by 11.34%, followed by Industrials (6.52%), Technology (3.24%), and Materials (0.32%) on the upside. The Energy sector has seen its representation in the S&P 500 fall the most during the rally with a decline of 12.27%. Telecom, Utilities, Consumer Staples, and Health Care are the other sectors with declines in market share. Technology still holds the title for the biggest sector at 18.15%, with Health Care in 2nd place and Consumer Staples and Energy in a race for 3rd." (bold highlight mine)

As presented in a table...

Bespoke also illustrates the historical trending of each sector of the S&P 500.

Adds Bespoke, ``Below is a historical look at S&P 500 weightings for each sector. The red line represents the average weighting for the sector since 1990. As shown, Financials moved sharply below average at the end of 2008, but have bounced slightly recently. Technology is just above its historical average, while Health Care and Energy are well above average but headed lower. Consumer Discretionary, Industrials, and Materials are below average but appear to be headed higher." (bold emphasis mine)


We have been looking at the energy and material sector as possible market leaders over the longer term since they've been depressed for quite sometime. (yes decades)

Nonetheless, technology has also been a downtrodden sector since the dot.com bust during the advent of the millienium. But given the rapid explosion of technological advances, it wouldn't be a surprise for this sector to have a shorter cycle relative to the others.

So a question popped into my mind, could the next bubble be a race between the energy and technology industry?

Stay tuned.

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