Chart of the Week Archive
Consumer Staples Capitulate
After holding up better than other sectors in 2008, Consumer Staples stocks have skidded since the beginning of the year and are now falling below November levels on the way to five year lows.
The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (Ticker: XLP) closed today at $20.75, below the November 21 intra-day low of $21.40 and at its lowest level since 2004.
At 17% of the portfolio, the largest component of XLP is
Corporate Bonds Restabilize
After a near-collapse in October, the corporate bond market is back on steady ground while continuing to deliver an attractive yield.
After trading around $100 for several years, the $8 billion iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond Fund (LQD) nose-dived to just below $80 at the end of September as massive deleveraging caused demand for corporate debt to temporarily disappear.
As the deveraging wound down, credit markets began to
Continue Reading »Financials Remain Volatile
With regulators and law makers bogged down in debate on how to deal with the credit crisis and worsening economy, financial stocks have gyrated wildly since the beginning of year.
The Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF), an ETF that tracks the financial sector of the S&P 500 Index, began the year at $12.52 and then promptly fell over 25% to $8.08 by January 20 before recovering to nearly $10 last week.
A banking crisis in the UK and rene
Continue Reading »Gold Climbs Higher as Equities Stumble in January
As the US equity markets stumbled out of the blocks, gold continued to climb back from its November lows.
Despite new leadership in Washington, the continued disappointing economic news resulted in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) falling 8.8% in January, the worst start to the year in history for the bellweather index.
At the same time, gold continued its climb with SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) finishing the month at
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