Thursday Sector Leaders: Healthcare, Consumer Products

Looking at the sectors faring best as of midday Thursday, shares of Healthcare companies are outperforming other sectors, up 0.5%. Within that group, Molina Healthcare Inc (Symbol: MOH) and West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (Symbol: WST) are two large stocks leading the way, showing a gain of 19.6% and 17.3%, respectively. Among healthcare ETFs, one ETF following the sector is the Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF (Symbol: XLV), which is down 0.4% on the day, and up 11.08% year-to-date. Molina Healthcare Inc, meanwhile, is down 9.00% year-to-date, and West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., is down 4.41% year-to-date. Combined, MOH and WST make up approximately 0.8% of the underlying holdings of XLV.

The next best performing sector is the Consumer Products sector, up 0.3%. Among large Consumer Products stocks, Tesla Inc (Symbol: TSLA) and Pool Corp (Symbol: POOL) are the most notable, showing a gain of 20.8% and 7.5%, respectively. One ETF closely tracking Consumer Products stocks is the iShares U.S. Consumer Goods ETF (IYK), which is down 0.2% in midday trading, and up 10.59% on a year-to-date basis. Tesla Inc, meanwhile, is up 3.88% year-to-date, and Pool Corp, is down 4.54% year-to-date.

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 Thursday. As you can see, five sectors are up on the day, while four sectors are down. Sector% ChangeHealthcare+0.5%Consumer Products+0.3%Financial+0.3%Technology & Communications+0.3%Services+0.1%Industrial-0.2%Energy-0.3%Utilities-0.5%Materials-1.1%

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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.