Utilities and Consumer Products Struggle Amid Market Fluctuations

The Utilities sector faced the sharpest downturn in the market on Monday, registering a 0.9% decline. Notably, stocks like Sempra (Symbol: SRE) and NiSource Inc. (Symbol: NI) have experienced significant losses, with drops of 2.7% and 1.9%, respectively. The Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF (Symbol: XLU), which tracks this sector, also fell, down 0.7% for the day but still up 1.10% year-to-date. Year-to-date performance shows Sempra down 2.74% and NiSource down 2.91%. Together, SRE and NI constitute about 6.1% of XLU’s holdings.

Following closely, the Consumer Products sector reported a minor loss of 0.2%. Within this sector, significant declines were noted for Clorox Co. (Symbol: CLX) and General Mills Inc. (Symbol: GIS), which saw losses of 3.6% and 2.8%, respectively. The iShares U.S. Consumer Goods ETF (IYK), reflecting the performance of consumer products stocks, was down 1.1% in midday trading and has a year-to-date decrease of 1.34%. For context, Clorox is down 3.30% year-to-date, while General Mills is down 2.59%. CLX and GIS make up about 2.6% of IYK’s holdings.

To better understand the performance of these stocks and ETFs, a comparison of their price movements over the past twelve months is illustrated in the chart below. Each symbol is marked in a different color, as indicated in the legend.

In a broader view of the S&P 500 sectors during afternoon trading, five sectors showed positive movement, while three sectors experienced declines.

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Also see:

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• ETFs Holding NVS

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