Friday, February 19, 2010

S&P 500 Historical Sector Weightings: 1990 - 2010



Above are the historical sector weightings for the S&P 500Technology currently has the biggest weighting in the S&P 500 at 19.2%. This is the highest weighting the Tech sector has had since the Internet bubble burst in 2000.

After falling all the way down to just 8.9% at the March 2009 lows, the Financial sector's weighting in the S&P 500 now ranks 2nd at 14.4%.

Health Care, Consumer Staples, Energy, and Industrials are the other 4 sectors with a weighting of more than 10%. The Consumer Discretionary sector is close to 10% at 9.8%. From 1998 to 2007, the Consumer Discretionary sector was bigger than the Consumer Staples sector.

When the bear market hit in 2007, Consumer Staples overtook Consumer Discretionary, but the spread has tightened to about two percentage points recently. If the bull market continues, we'll likely see Discretionary overtake Staples once again.

While the Materials sector gets a lot of attention in the media, especially because it has the gold stocks, it's important to remember that it only makes up 3.5% of the S&P 500. The Utilities sector is even bigger than Materials.

Chart and analysis courtesy of Bespoke Investment Group

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