Group Report
Internet Retail: Beyond Amazon
Amazon has become synonymous with the Internet Retail industry, however, this group is comprised of a diverse mix of companies ranging across the market spectrum, and strength is being exhibited throughout the group.
Financials Strengthen Among GS Scores; Specialized Finance Purchased
The Financials’ Group Selection (GS) Score sector-composite rating has incrementally improved over the past five months, rising to rank #2 out of 11 sectors in late June.
Homebuilding Stocks Take Flight
Homebuilding rose to rank #1 among our universe in our latest monthly Group Selection (GS) Scores. The industry has staged an impressive turnaround, beginning in October 2018, with strong returns outpacing the S&P 500 by more than 2.5x YTD.
Information Technology Sector Now Highest Rated
For the first time since late 2017, Information Technology moved into the top-rated spot. This sector has historically produced especially strong results during periods after which it took over the #1 seat.
Movies & Entertainment & Broadcasting Revisited
Performance has been robust for this group, rising on a relative strength basis since the end of 2017. Its diverse mix of constituents equates to a group that, overall, is middle-of-road in terms of beta and volatility relative to other industries. These dynamics have contributed to its solid relative returns across diverging market environments of late.
Airlines Travel To Attractive In The GS Scores
We look at our domestic Airlines’ GS Score and examine the historical relationship between oil prices and Airline stocks. Additionally, we explore several other data sets to determine where the industry’s supply/demand picture stands heading into 2019.
Housing Affordability & Homebuilding Stocks
The Homebuilding stocks represent another Consumer Discretionary group ranking Attractive via our GS Scores; we have held the Homebuilding group for the last year and a half. Homebuilders is an extremely rate-conscious industry group given mortgage rates’ impact on housing affordability (and thus, demand).
Restaurants Group Dishes Up Defense
The Restaurants industry is another Consumer Discretionary group ranking Attractive via our GS Scores; we purchased it in the Select Industries (SI) portfolio in November. This group has exhibited defensive qualities of late.
Brick & Mortar Retail Evades October Sell-Off
Although Discretionary stocks broadly underperformed during October’s market decline, prominent amongst the very top industry group performers was a rather unexpected genre of industries—brick & mortar retail. Not only did this cohort hold up during October’s tumult, but many of the underlying stocks have been posting strong returns all year.
Defensive Health Care Outpaces The Market
Recently, Health Care stocks have been making headlines as the sector rallies to new all-time highs. However, when we look at the sector via Leuthold’s proprietarily-built industry group composition—which has a more realistic market-cap weighting approach—the Health Care sector has been outperforming since the end of 2017, and YTD it is the #1 performing sector in our work.
A Phoenix Rises: The New Communication Services Sector
Herein we include an executive summary previewing our forthcoming, in-depth special report on September’s GICS sector changes. The full report, “A Prehistory of the Communication Services Sector” will be distributed soon.
Attractively-Rated “Movies & Entertainment & Broadcasting” Group
Movies & Entertainment & Broadcasting’s Group Selection (GS) Score has been steadily improving of late; it rose to High Neutral in March and pushed up to Attractive two months ago. Currently a member of the Consumer Discretionary sector, this is a less-correlated option to the many retail industries also currently ranking strongly among the Discretionary components.
Highlighted Attractive Groups
Consumer Discretionary is the highest-rated sector for the fifth consecutive month; Info Tech and Financials have been trading places between #2 and #3 for five months. Coming in last (again) is Utilities.
Health Care Facilities Purchased In Select Industries
YTD, out of the 110 industries, HC Facilities is the fourth best performing group
Highlighted Attractive Groups
Air Freight & Logistics is now Attractive for the first time in two years; Managed Health Care has scored in the top tier dating back to 2009; Trading Companies/Distributors provides an option with oil exposure at a time when the GS Scores remain decidedly anti-oil overall.
Discretionary Reigns: Hotels & Leisure Revisited
The Consumer Discretionary index has also managed to outperform the S&P 500 by about 100 bps since the market’s January 26th peak, and in late March it was just a hair away from surpassing its previous relative strength performance high recorded in late 2015.
Highted Attractive Groups
Department Stores have rallied the last four months; Health Care Distributors is one of the cheapest groups we track; Paper & Forest Products is the only Materials group in the Attractive range of the GS Scores.
Health Care Services Purchased In Select Industries
Our Group Selection (GS) Scores ranked Health Care as one of the top two sectors for a majority of 2011-2015; sector relative strength soared over that period.
Highlighted Attractive Groups
Airlines rebounded after a brief dip to High Neutral; Health Care Distributors is scoring well across the board (other than Technical factors); Specialty Stores is cheap due to the changing retail landscape.
GS Scores: Industrial Metals Stocks Heating Up
While the Materials sector overall still isn’t looking stellar based on our work, we think with the Metals theme heating up, it’s a trend worth watching.
Perception for the Professional
March 2026 Issue
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March 2026 Issue
