With just eight trading days left in 2012, below is a look at the year-to-date performance of the ten S&P 500 sectors. As shown, three sectors are outperforming the S&P 500 as a whole, while seven are underperforming. The Financial sector, which has the second largest weighting in the index behind Technology, is up the most in 2012 with a big gain of 26.90%. Consumer Discretionary ranks second with a gain of 22.91%, while Health Care ranks third at +18.06%.
While the S&P 500 is up 15.04% year to date, the Utilities sector is actually down on the year (-0.88%). Utilities had periods of strong outperformance this year, but its big drop following the election on concerns over dividend tax hikes really hit the sector hard.
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