Update on Sector SPDR Weightings

In my last post on the relative values of the 9 sector SPDR ETFs, I showed a graph of the values across time (link).

Since then, the market has fallen a 17% or so from the monthly peak, so I thought I'd look at some peaks and troughs over the past 10 years from this point of view.  The table below shows the relative weightings for today, followed by the recent peak in May, the terrible low of March 2009, the peak before the credit crisis in October 2007, and the bottom after the dot-com bust in September 2002.  The colors show how that weighting compares to the previous one.

A few observations:

• XLE and XLB (energy and basic materials respectively) are falling for the first time in a long while - could this mean the end of the resource/commodity boom that we have been in for the past ~10 years?
• XLY and XLK (consumer discretionary and technology respectively) have been doing quite well, including in the recent pullback - there are lots of cheap stocks in those sectors, so this makes sense to me.  If we're headed into recession, shouldn't consumer stocks be falling by more?
• XLF (financials) is as low as it was in March 2009... it doesn't seem like the same kind of environment from a risk of financial collapse perspective, so does that mean there are bargains in the financial sector?

Date	SPY	SPY Change	XLB	XLE	XLF	XLI	XLK	XLP	XLU	XLV	XLY
22-Sep-11	112.86	-17.3%	10.7%	21.0%	4.1%	10.2%	8.4%	10.4%	11.7%	11.1%	12.4%
1-May-11	136.43	84.5%	11.9%	23.4%	4.8%	11.3%	7.8%	9.2%	9.6%	10.3%	11.8%
1-Mar-09	73.93	-51.7%	10.4%	22.2%	4.1%	9.2%	7.6%	11.0%	13.7%	12.4%	9.4%
1-Oct-07	153.08	105.5%	11.9%	21.0%	9.1%	11.1%	7.8%	7.7%	11.5%	9.8%	10.0%
3-Sep-02	74.49		9.8%	12.1%	11.3%	11.1%	6.9%	11.0%	9.7%	14.6%	13.4%