Welcome back from the weekend, everybody. And, happy Columbus Day! OK, unless you work for a bank and/or the federal government or you tried to go to a bank or to a federal government office, you wouldn't have even known it - the stock market was open all the same. But, for those few of you who get the day off, we hope you enjoyed your three-day weekend. In any case, we've got a few things to work through today... not much. Let's just kick things off by poking a little fun at the few things that did happen on this slow news day. In no particular order... Straight from the page of "Duh" magazine, China is now, finally,"concerned" about the Volkswagen emissions scam. We knew it had to happen sometime sooner or later, but you'd think new (and still part-time) Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey would at least get his office furnishings unpacked before he started this stuff. Tracking stocks never seem to live up to the hype, which is why it's so surprising this company's board of directors is on board with the idea. I'm still chewing on what the angle is here, but I foresee frustration. You Won't Believe This is the Hottest Sector Whether investors as a whole want to admit it or not, they're thinking defensively. They may not be doing it intentionally, or even know they're doing it. But, as they say, charts don't lie. Honestly, if I hadn't brought it up about 20 times in the last two months I probably wouldn't even bother bringing it up today. Inasmuch as it's been one of our big trading themes lately, however, I have to point out that today's big winner was utilities.... boring old utilities. And, since we're on the matter, the utility sector is also the best performer over the course of the past 30 days. For the past three months, it's the only winner. Yes, utilities... a sector near and dear to my heart since July 28th. And just for the record, the small cap utility names have seriously outperformed their large cap brethren. You can see this on the updated chart of both below. That was another theme I plugged into and told you about back on October 1st. I don't know how long it'll last, but I've got a feeling as long as the market remains lethargic then investors will seek out safe havens like utility stocks. The moral of the story is, never assume anything. Big winners can and will come from any sector eventually. I know some of you long-time readers might remember this, but considering how important the premise is - and considering some of you are kind of new - it bears repeating. So, here goes: The number-one thing anyone can start doing right away to start getting more out of the market is put a sector-rotation trend-following plan in place. I'm not going to say it's easy, but if you're willing to do a little work and get creative, I sincerely believe sector rotation is the best way for anyone to get more bang for their proverbial buck. The numbers vary slightly from one study to the next, but broadly speaking, statistics say that any stock's movement is about 40% attributable to its sector alone. Another 20% of its net gain or loss is attributable to the industry it's in (so between the two, that accounts for 60% of its net movement). Simultaneously, three out of four stocks move in the same direction as the market on any given day... and honestly, I think the figure is higher than that. Just to be conservative though, I'll stick with the 3/4 proportion. So what does this mean? Well, as much as I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, a company's fundamentals and that stock's relative strength and technical clues have less to do with its performance than (1) the overall market tide, and (2) the sector/industry tide. I hope I didn't upset the apple cart too much with that revelation, but the truth is the truth. We all need to spend a little less time dissecting the daylights out of a company's performance and instead set our barometer to "bigger picture." With that as the backdrop, here's a nudge in the right direction - the performance paths all ten of the market's major sectors have taken since the beginning of the year. The picture is a little messy now - more so than usual. But, if you spend some time looking and studying, you can see which groups are emerging as leaders and which groups are falling behind. It was this chart that first showed me the utility sector was coming out of a multi-month slump, and taking that hint paid off big-time. I'm going to try to give you this chart more often than I do know, but I know what it means when I say "I'll try." Usually it means a bazillion other things end up getting in the way. If you want this kind of analysis and trade-worthy insight every single day though, the Elite Opportunity team is doing sector-level analysis that's as good if not better than this. In fact, John just issued a new call on an industry today. You can still get in if you want - there's some time left. Here's all you have to do to get it. Please Say It Ain't So The market continues to test everyone's patience. Today it did so by making a near-carbon-copy of Friday's bar, making almost immeasurable progress. Volume was pretty pathetic too. Geez I hope the S&P 500 doesn't start to get comfortable between the lines at 1992 and 2050. If it does, it could make for a miserable remainder of October. There was something interesting about today' chart though - while the S&P 500 didn't budge, it looks as if the VIX is still in a slow-moving downtrend. That's got bullish undertones for stocks. I don't care if the market goes up or down. I just want it to do one or the other. If we fall back into another one of these range-bound modes, I may lose it.