Defensive Sectors Emerge Top Performers in February

On the last day of the month I always stick my head up from the day to day noisy swing trading weeds and look through monthly charts of all of the major markets and individual sectors to gain some high level perspective.

This month, we’ve seen three of the four top sector SPDR components fall into defensive categories: health care, staples, and utilities.

Monthly charts to follow.

Staples $XLP broke out from a 6 month pullback into the rising 20 period EMA and are now quickly back to new closing monthly highs.

Utilities $XLU also snapped a 6 or 7 month pullback and is quickly in route to test all time highs.

Perhaps the most actionable and powerful setup is healthcare $XLV which is potentially emerging from an over 2 year consolidation.

That’s a pretty nice looking continuation pattern in the works there on a very large timescale.

Note all of these charts are adjusted for dividends.

Thanks for reading and good luck out there.