Thursday Sector Leaders: Energy, Consumer Products

Looking at the sectors faring best as of midday Thursday, shares of Energy companies are outperforming other sectors, higher by 1.6%. Within that group, Valero Energy Corp (Symbol: VLO) and Marathon Petroleum Corp. (Symbol: MPC) are two large stocks leading the way, showing a gain of 4.2% and 3.9%, respectively. Among energy ETFs, one ETF following the sector is the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (Symbol: XLE), which is up 2.3% on the day, and up 2.25% year-to-date. Valero Energy Corp, meanwhile, is up 3.89% year-to-date, and Marathon Petroleum Corp. is up 3.60% year-to-date. Combined, VLO and MPC make up approximately 7.3% of the underlying holdings of XLE.

The next best performing sector is the Consumer Products sector, losing just 0.3%. Among large Consumer Products stocks, Lamb Weston Holdings Inc (Symbol: LW) and Ford Motor Co. (Symbol: F) are the most notable, showing a gain of 9.8% and 2.8%, respectively. One ETF closely tracking Consumer Products stocks is the iShares U.S. Consumer Goods ETF (IYK), which is down 0.7% in midday trading, and down 0.56% on a year-to-date basis. Lamb Weston Holdings Inc, meanwhile, is up 10.13% year-to-date, and Ford Motor Co. is up 5.74% year-to-date. LW makes up approximately 0.7% of the underlying holdings of IYK.

Comparing these stocks and ETFs on a trailing twelve month basis, below is a relative stock price performance chart, with each of the symbols shown in a different color as labeled in the legend at the bottom:

Here's a snapshot of how the S&P 500 components within the various sectors are faring in afternoon trading on Thursday. As you can see, one sector is up on the day, while eight sectors are down.

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