As I went to post this article, I noticed RaginCajun and I must have been thinking along the same lines. His post, “Weekly Look at the US Stock Market” is both timely and informative. His graphs give a good picture of the strongest industries week over week.
On June 24, 2016, the market breadth flagged 13.36% of stocks were up and 86.64% of stocks were down at the end of the day.
We all know gold and silver were on most watch lists. The silver industry flagged a 100% breadth yesterday up 4.5% and the gold industry flagged a 95% breadth up 5.40%.
Assuming we cannot survive on gold and silver (yes, Midas tried, but he went hungry), I took a look at consumer non-cyclical industries to see how they fared in the choppy seas of red.
One of my first surprises was the auto parts stores. The market breadth for this industry flagged a whopping 80%. This actually makes sense when you think about the rough start we had this year in the economy. To save you some time, here is a list of some of the auto parts stores:
$AAP Advance Auto
$AZO Auto Zone
$MNRO Monroe Muffler
$ORLY O’Reilly Auto
$PBY Pep Boys
One industry that I did expect to see was water. The water utilities industry breadth flagged 70%. Even if you are on Dr. Fly’s Ark, you will still need water to drink and maybe wash under the armpits if you please. If you are looking for a water company instead of an ETF, check these out:
$AWK American Water Works up 2.18%
$CTWS Connecticut Water up 0.51%
$CWT California Water up 2.08%
$WTR Aqua America Inc. up 1.01%
$MSEX Middlesex Water up 0.33% (As a disclaimer, I have stock in this company. You might be thinking why not AWK or CWT? It was a toss-up between going east or going west, I chose east, but will probably add CWT down the road.)
The diversified utilities industry flagged a market breadth of 68%. My XLU helped keep me above water for part of the day as it was up .83%.
The electric utilities industry flagged a market breadth of 55%. There were a handful of gas related stocks that were up, but not enough to flag the whole industry.
Reit healthcare market breadth was 64%. Let’s face it; we baby boomers have a few issues with obesity, high blood pressure, sugar diabetes, and the beginnings of Alzheimer. We cannot go without our meds and doctor visits.
Surprisingly, I did not see the food industry performing well. My guess is we’re all eating mac and cheese and ramen noodles from our stocked pantries.
In my opinion it does not hurt to be prepared for the down times whether it be stocking the pantry or having an emergency fund, (actually both are a good idea). When times become tough, top priorities will be food, gas, medical care, and utilities. Silver and gold are a good hedge and Dr. Fly led us on the right path going into these last few weeks, which helped soften the blow if you were still holding long.
Just breathe.
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