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Monthly Sector Rankings Show Defensive Leadership

John Murphy

John Murphy

Chief Technical Analyst, StockCharts.com

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in John Murphy's Market Message on Friday, June 14th at 1:20pm ET.


Chart 1 is taken from the Sector Summary page for the past month. And it shows that investors are still gravitating toward defensive issues. Four of the top sectors are utilities, health care, real estate, and consumer staples. All four are defensive in nature. Even the month's strongest sector has a defensive tilt.  Materials were the month's strongest sector. But it was led higher by gold miners which rallied on the back of a stronger gold market. Gold has been rallying along with other traditional safe havens like Treasury bonds and bond proxies like staples, utilities, and REITs.

Chart 1

John Murphy
About the author: is the Chief Technical Analyst at StockCharts.com, a renowned author in the investment field and a former technical analyst for CNBC, and is considered the father of inter-market technical analysis. With over 40 years of market experience, he is the author of numerous popular works including “Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets” and “Trading with Intermarket Analysis”. Before joining StockCharts, John was the technical analyst for CNBC-TV for seven years on the popular show Tech Talk, and has authored three best-selling books on the subject: Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets, Trading with Intermarket Analysis and The Visual Investor. Learn More