Looking at the sectors faring best as of midday Thursday, shares of Industrial companies are outperforming other sectors, up 0.8%. Within that group, United Rentals Inc (Symbol: URI) and Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (Symbol: HII) are two of the day's stand-outs, showing a gain of 3.4% and 2.7%, respectively. Among industrial ETFs, one ETF following the sector is the Industrial Select Sector SPDR ETF (Symbol: XLI), which is up 0.7% on the day, and up 18.92% year-to-date. United Rentals Inc, meanwhile, is up 22.17% year-to-date, and Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. is up 15.00% year-to-date. Combined, URI and HII make up approximately 0.8% of the underlying holdings of XLI.
The next best performing sector is the Financial sector, higher by 0.2%. Among large Financial stocks, Unum Group (Symbol: UNM) and Everest Re Group Ltd (Symbol: RE) are the most notable, showing a gain of 3.2% and 1.9%, respectively. One ETF closely tracking Financial stocks is the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF), which is up 0.6% in midday trading, and up 12.43% on a year-to-date basis. Unum Group, meanwhile, is up 25.19% year-to-date, and Everest Re Group Ltd is up 2.10% year-to-date. Combined, UNM and RE make up approximately 0.5% of the underlying holdings of XLF.
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, four sectors are up on the day, while three sectors are down.
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