Websites For Traders  |  MAR 2006

Websites For Traders: SectorUpdates.com by David Penn

Stocks & Commodities V. 24:3 (75): Websites For Traders: SectorUpdates.com by David Penn As a trader, do your eyes light up or glaze over when the subject shifts to market sectors? For most fundamentally oriented traders, my guess would be the former rather than the latter. After all, the idea that it is beneficial to study the various sectors into which industries, companies, and stocks are divided is predicated on the concept that the economic cycle plays a disproportionate influence on certain stocks at certain times. Other fundamentally oriented types look to the monetary cycle — the pattern of rising and falling short-term, or cash, interest rates — to spot the various effects of the movement of the cycle from tightening or restrictive to neutral to accommodative on different types of stocks. The truth of the matter is that technical traders have as much to gain from understanding how powerful the influence of market sectors can be on the stock market as a whole as well as on individual stocks as do fundamental traders. After all, if the economy favors a certain type of stock, and a certain type of stock is well (or even over-) represented in a given index or average, then it might be possible for a trader to achieve outperformance simply by applying his or her technical tools to trading that index or average to the exclusion of others.

by David Penn