This time of year, market prognosticators, financial journalists and traders look back on what was hot and what was not in 2014. More importantly, all of us are trying to figure out what’s likely to work in 2015. #-ad_banner-#Now, there are two schools of thought. One is to sort through the most beaten-down sectors of the year (the most obvious being the bludgeoned energy sector) and try to find the hidden gems that have been unfairly caught up in the sell-off. The other school of thought is to look at sectors that outperformed the rest of the market. … Read More
This time of year, market prognosticators, financial journalists and traders look back on what was hot and what was not in 2014. More importantly, all of us are trying to figure out what’s likely to work in 2015. #-ad_banner-#Now, there are two schools of thought. One is to sort through the most beaten-down sectors of the year (the most obvious being the bludgeoned energy sector) and try to find the hidden gems that have been unfairly caught up in the sell-off. The other school of thought is to look at sectors that outperformed the rest of the market. I prefer the latter tactic. Most investors are conditioned with a “buy low, sell high” mentality that can actually hurt their performance. Research has shown assets that are outperforming the market tend to continue outperforming. A screen of the major market sectors showed outstanding relative price performance year to date in two sectors that I suspect have the juice to continue delivering into 2015: biotech and tech. For most of the year, stocks in the health care space have been on fire. Large-cap stocks in the iShares DJ US Healthcare ETF (NYSE: IYH)… Read More