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Sector rotation in the S&P 500 

A stock chart shows the SPX price movement with candles, moving averages (20- and 50-day) and volume bars from June 2023 to January 2024, which is similar to an automatically saved draft of the market trends.

Dear traders, dear stock market friends.

Last week, the S&P 500 rose above the 7,000-point mark for the first time in its history, albeit only briefly in intraday trading. The overarching upward trend remains intact; however, the S&P 500 has yet to stage a significant rally this year and has so far tended to move sideways to moderately upwards.

Massive breakout in the energy sector 

While the index gained 1.4 % on balance in January, a look at the performance of the individual market sectors of the S&P 500 reveals a differentiated picture.

A table showing the daily percentage changes in sector ETFs. Energy, Materials and Consumer Staples lead the gains, while Technology and Financials show losses. Green and red bars indicate changes - an automatically saved draft for your analysis.
YTD performance of the 11 market sectors of the S&P 500

With an increase of more than 14 %, the energy sector is by far the strongest sector since the beginning of the year. The leading companies in the energy sector include Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips. The State Street Energy Select Sector with the symbol XLE is suitable for trading and analyzing the entire sector. On the following weekly chart you can see that it recently broke out under very strong volume and rose to new highs.

The chart shows that the price of the XLE Energy Sector ETF has risen above a highlighted resistance zone, with an increase in trading volume indicated by a red arrow below the price chart, as shown in this auto-saved draft.
Energy Sector ETF (XLE) weekly chart

Another sector that currently deserves attention is consumer staples (symbol: XLP). With a YTD performance of 7.5 %, the sector is also showing clear relative strength. The leading stocks include Walmart, Costco Wholesale, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola.

From an intermarket analysis perspective, the XLP plays an important role as it is a very defensive sector. The relative strength of defensive stocks usually signals a certain risk aversion on the part of investors and is often a harbinger of a correction or a trend reversal in the broad market.

If you divide the offensive XLY (non-basic consumer goods or consumer discretionary) by the defensive XLP (basic consumer goods or consumer staples), you get a relationship line that gives a very good indication of the current risk appetite and shows a high correlation with the S&P 500 Index.

On the following chart you can see this relationship line (XLY:XLP) and in the background with the purple area chart the S&P 500. Below the chart is a correlation indicator that measures the correlation of the relationship line to the S&P 500. As you can see, there is a very high correlation most of the time. This means that when the relationship line rises, this is accompanied by an upward movement of the S&P 500 and when the relationship line falls, this often leads to a downward movement of the S&P 500. The interesting thing here is that the sector rotation often runs ahead of the development of the index. A weakness in the ratio line can therefore be interpreted as a serious warning signal for the broad market.

A stock chart showing the price development over 2 years, with moving averages, a shaded area, an automatically saved draft, a support zone marked in green and an indicator chart at the bottom.
XLY:XLP Daily chart

Although the relationship line has been relatively weak in recent weeks, it is not yet in a clear downward trend. It is currently right on an important support zone. Should this support be breached to the downside in the coming days or weeks, this would be a very important warning signal for the S&P 500.

As far as the other sectors are concerned, however, there is still no clear defensive sector rotation to be seen. The other defensive sectors - namely XLU (utilities) and XLV (health care) - were comparatively weak or neutral in January. As far as the offensive market sectors are concerned, we saw that the highly valued technology stocks came under some pressure, but that traditional industrial stocks can benefit from the increased growth prospects.

With an increase of 6.7 % since the beginning of the year, the industrial sector (XLI) is also one of the clear leaders and has completed a nice technical breakout.

Candlestick chart of the XLV Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund from early 2021 to mid-2024, showing an uptrend in prices with volume bars and moving averages, as seen in this autosaved draft.
Industrials-Secor (XLI) weekly chart

Seasonality means no major leaps are expected in February

Looking at the seasonal trend, a little caution is still required in the coming weeks. February, together with September, is the weakest month of the year. Over the last 20 years, the S&P 500 has risen only 53 % of the time, with an average performance of -0.1 %. Over the last 10 years, the average performance was -0.6 % and the index rose only 44 % of the time.

From March/April into the summer, however, we can expect a very strong seasonal phase.

Bar chart showing the percentage of months from 2017 to 2026 in which the $SPX closed higher than it opened, with August having the highest value at 100 % and January the lowest at 30 %. Automatically saved draft.
Seasonality S&P 500 last 10 years

Author: Tobias Schmid
Date: 02.02.2026

A man with slicked-back hair and a trimmed beard, wearing a navy blue suit jacket and a white shirt, looks into the camera with a slight smile. Industrial background.
Tobias Schmid

Tobias Schmid has been a trader and analyst since 2008 and specializes in trading futures options and equity options. His strategies and analysis methods are based on a combination of technical analysis, intermarket analysis and sentiment analysis. Tobias Schmid is also the founder of Fomo Financea financial website for active traders, investors and options traders.

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