Tuesday Sector Leaders: Technology & Communications, Materials

Looking at the sectors faring best as of midday Tuesday, shares of Technology & Communications companies are outperforming other sectors, higher by 1.7%. Within that group, NXP Semiconductors NV (Symbol: NXPI) and ON Semiconductor Corp (Symbol: ON) are two large stocks leading the way, showing a gain of 7.0% and 6.5%, respectively. Among technology ETFs, one ETF following the sector is the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (Symbol: XLK), which is up 1.4% on the day, and up 15.50% year-to-date. NXP Semiconductors NV, meanwhile, is up 6.55% year-to-date, and ON Semiconductor Corp, is down 20.44% year-to-date. Combined, NXPI and ON make up approximately 0.7% of the underlying holdings of XLK.

The next best performing sector is the Materials sector, up 1.5%. Among large Materials stocks, Builders FirstSource Inc. (Symbol: BLDR) and Eastman Chemical Co (Symbol: EMN) are the most notable, showing a gain of 6.2% and 3.9%, respectively. One ETF closely tracking Materials stocks is the Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLB), which is up 1.2% in midday trading, and up 6.99% on a year-to-date basis. Builders FirstSource Inc., meanwhile, is down 4.34% year-to-date, and Eastman Chemical Co, is down 28.71% year-to-date. EMN makes up approximately 1.0% of the underlying holdings of XLB.

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 Tuesday. As you can see, nine sectors are up on the day, while none of the sectors are down.

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