Natural gas tops the futures list for relative performance. Nat gas is up 27% YTD.
Right behind it is the Nikkei 225 index, up 27%, getting a boost from the latest BOJ monetary easing efforts (note: Yen is down 12% YTD). The Dow Industrials are up 13.5% YTD and the S&P 500 is up 11%. Remember what we learned from Ray Dalio: currency depreciation and money printing are good for stocks (at least in nominal terms).
Gold and silver have been selling off in recent weeks. The precious metals took a hard spill today as the markets mulled a possible winding down of the Fed's QE program. It seems, in this instance, simply scaling back "money printing" efforts is enough to push gold and silver into free fall mode.
Individual stocks have done pretty well year-to-date. Of all US-listed stocks, Finviz shows 4,713 are up (show a positive return) YTD vs. 1,744 down YTD. A simple screen of liquid stocks (greater than 100k avg. volume) shows 443 stocks up 30 percent or more year-to-date.
The best performing industries YTD are: Credit Services (96%), Music and Video Stores (85%), Electronic Stores (69%) and Memory Chips (48%).
The worst performing industries YTD include: Gold (-30%), Silver (-29%), Personal Computers (-17%), and Industrial Metals (-14%).
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