Looking at the sectors faring best as of midday Thursday, shares of Energy companies are outperforming other sectors, losing just 0.8%. Within that group, Valero Energy Corp (Symbol: VLO) and Marathon Petroleum Corp. (Symbol: MPC) are two large stocks leading the way, showing a gain of 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively. Among energy ETFs, one ETF following the sector is the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (Symbol: XLE), which is down 0.7% on the day, and up 9.96% year-to-date. Valero Energy Corp, meanwhile, is up 26.11% year-to-date, and Marathon Petroleum Corp. is up 20.22% year-to-date. Combined, VLO and MPC make up approximately 7.4% of the underlying holdings of XLE.

The next best performing sector is the Materials sector, losing just 0.9%. Among large Materials stocks, International Paper Co (Symbol: IP) and Builders FirstSource Inc. (Symbol: BLDR) are the most notable, showing a gain of 5.1% and 0.5%, respectively. One ETF closely tracking Materials stocks is the Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLB), which is down 0.9% in midday trading, and up 6.20% on a year-to-date basis. International Paper Co, meanwhile, is up 22.30% year-to-date, and Builders FirstSource Inc., is down 0.10% year-to-date. IP makes up approximately 1.4% of the underlying holdings of XLB.

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, none of the sectors are up on the day, while nine sectors are down.

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Also see:

• ETF Fund Flows
• SQLV Videos
• IBDV market cap history

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