Market Leaders--Energy, Materials--Being Sold

We noted last week the mantra of the bears: in a real bear market, even the market leadership eventually gets taken out. And that prophecy appears to be coming true. Quietly, traders have been selling the energy and materials stocks, which were the market leaders.

Now look at how far some of the main stocks in these sectors have fallen from their recent highs:

Massey Energy -27 percent
Mosaic -25 percent
U.S. Steel -22 percent
Anadarko Petroleum -19 percent
Freeport-McMoRan -19 percent

The lower price for oil is not helping stocks, because so many have hidden in these two sectors and they are a proportionately greater part of the market than they were a year ago. So flat industrials and healthcare cannot mask the weakness; 3-2 declining to advancing stocks.

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