Wednesday Sector Leaders: Energy, Services

The best performing sector as of midday Wednesday is the Energy sector, higher by 0.9%. Within that group, Pioneer Natural Resources Co (Symbol: PXD) and Williams Cos Inc (Symbol: WMB) are two large stocks leading the way, showing a gain of 2.3% and 2.0%, respectively. Among energy ETFs, one ETF following the sector is the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (Symbol: XLE), which is up 1.1% on the day, and down 3.70% year-to-date. Pioneer Natural Resources Co, meanwhile, is down 3.19% year-to-date, and Williams Cos Inc is up 2.27% year-to-date. Combined, PXD and WMB make up approximately 6.8% of the underlying holdings of XLE.

The next best performing sector is the Services sector, not showing much of a loss. Among large Services stocks, Carnival Corp (Symbol: CCL) and Netflix Inc (Symbol: NFLX) are the most notable, showing a gain of 7.7% and 4.0%, respectively. One ETF closely tracking Services stocks is the iShares U.S. Consumer Services ETF (IYC), which is up 0.3% in midday trading, and up 24.07% on a year-to-date basis. Carnival Corp, meanwhile, is up 114.62% year-to-date, and Netflix Inc is up 47.05% year-to-date. Combined, CCL and NFLX make up approximately 3.9% of the underlying holdings of IYC.

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:

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

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