Market's Sluggish Start

Markets are off to a slow start in 2014.  In one sense this should really not be much of a surprise.  Stocks rallied nearly 3.5% in the last two weeks of 2013 and a large part of that had to have been end of the year portfolio dressing.  Remember it's the last print of the year on which Wall Street gets paid.  

Still the sluggishness that has greeted us in January is a far cry from how 2013 started.  Bespoke Investment Group has taken a look at sector performance so far this year vs 2013.  Here's the chart.  

Health care was the big winner last year and is shining so far in 2014.  Energy and materials which severely lagged the markets are continuing that trend.

I think it's a tad early to try and draw to many trends for this year from the first two weeks of market performance because of that big run up at the end of the year.  Still, valuations remain somewhat problematic.  I'm going to try and address the probabilities of market returns in a post later this week.

Link:  Bespoke:  2014's Slow Start Highlighted By Industry.

*Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client and personal accounts.  Long ETFs related to energy in client and personal accounts.  Long ETFs related to materials in certain client accounts.  I have specifically listed in this disclosure positions in sectors I've highlighted in this post.  However, we are also long various other indices related to the sectors shown above in certain client and personal accounts.