About the ETF Sector Data Website
Welcome to ETF Sector Data. This website aims to be the #1 online resource for anyone interested in sector investment rotation strategies. All of the stocks featured on this website are widely available US listed exchange traded funds. To make price and performance comparisons more straightforward, all stock prices are listed in US dollars.
I had the inspiration for this website after subscribing to Salty Dog Investor. Many of their subscribers have juiced their portfolio returns by following a very simple strategy of buying into whatever markets are gaining momentum, and selling out of markets that are losing momentum.
An additional source of inspiration was viewing the annual performance of UK listed investment unit trusts on the TrustNet website. There's a really nice performance table that allows you to view the annual performance of a large number of unit trusts. I soon realised that the winners in one year are not often the winners in subsequent years. In fact, a year's winners often fizzle out and generate poor returns in subsequent years. An example is technology, which soared in 2020 only to significantly underperform in 2022. Here's a table where I've summarised the highest performing sectors over several years.
| UK Listed Unit Trust Major Winning and Losing Sectors by Year | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Winners | Losers |
| 2024 | US Utilities22%, Global Insurance21% | Latin America18%, Clean Energy11% |
| 2023 | Technology40% | China26% |
| 2022 | Energy75%, Natural Resources33% | Technology50%, UK Gilts40% |
| 2021 | India36%, US Financials35% | Brazil18%, China17% |
| 2020 | Technology68%, Artificial Intelligence70%, | Energy35% |
| 2019 | Gold45%, Technology40% | No major sector down more than 5% |
Data source: TrustNet.
Note that all performance data is approximate and only a selection of each year's winners and losers and shown in the table. Some unit trusts significantly outperformed their peers in the same sector.
Finally I've also established this website because like many investors I really need to boost my own portfolio's performance. I've largely managed my own investments since 1998. While I have done reasonably well over the years, I've missed out on making huge returns because I neglected to invest in either tech or the USA. In some years I've also been in completely the wrong sectors. In 2018 - 2020 I was overweight Asia, and this region has really lagged other regions during this time period. I was also overweight real estate and infrastructure in 2022. Rising interest rates smashed a lot of my holdings and I remember buying into one stock only to see it plunge by 50% the month after I bought it! If only I had known about sector rotation at the time. Then I would have rotated out of these sectors as soon as inflation started to flare up.
Even if you're not interested in implementing a sector rotation strategy for your portfolio, it is still useful to have an awareness of which sectors are outperforming and which sectors are underperforming. As I'm writing this in late 2024, utilities have been a strong performer in the year to date. By comparison energy is really starting to underperform. This is a sure sign that we could be in the late stages of an economic cycle.
Another ominous sign that 2024 is late cycle is that technology and gold have been very strong performers. This mirrors 2019's hottest sectors. Another parallel with 2019 is that with the exception of Latin America, few market sectors have drastically underperformed. This could be a giveaway that markets in general have peaked or are close to peaking.