Welcome back, everybody. How was your weekend? If you were expecting normal trading to resume this week after last week's lull, you've probably realized by now it's not going to happen. Though Monday's volume was a little stronger than Friday's volume, that's not saying much - it was still on the thin side. I doubt we'll see any significant perk-up later this week either. See, markets are closed on Thursday in observance of New Year's Day, which means the day before is going to be a tepid day as well, as traders tend to make New Year's Eve a holiday too even though the market is open a full day on Wednesday. A lot of traders think it's also somewhat pointless to come back for just one trading day between a holiday and a weekend, so Friday's apt to be tepid too. That leaves today and Tuesday as the only viable trading days for the week, and considering the way the holidays fell on the calendar this year, it's likely a bunch of the regular trading crowd isn't going to bother checking in at all this week. In fact, Monday's lethargy pretty much confirms a large degree of disinterest at this point, which doesn't bode well for Tuesday's action. And yet, we've got plenty to talk about. While we devote plenty of time toward analyzing the market's short-term ebbs and flows, the fact of the matter is, if we don't keep our finger on the market's bigger-picture pulse, none of the short-term stuff really matters. To that end, we're going to take a big step back beginning today and look at what 2014 looked like from a distance, and what that may mean for 2015. There are several different vantage points and purposes for this bird's-eye analysis, though we're only going to focus on one of them today..... sectors. Which sectors were last year's leaders, and which sectors are apt to lead in 2015 based on 2014's performance? I could use a table to do this, but honestly, we think our comparative-performance charts tell you so much more than a collection of numbers can. So, here it is. Yes, you saw that right... utility stocks led the way in 2014 with a 30% gain, while healthcare stocks (pumped up by biotech) were a close second with a 25.2% gain. For perspective, the S&P 500 is up 13.6% year-to-date, with two trading days left in the year. Telecom was near the bottom of the barrel, with a breakeven, while energy stocks got clobbered. They're down 8.4% for 2014. I've got a point and an outlook to give you with this information, but before we get to it I'd like to offer something of a footnote regarding today's data. That footnote is, never say never. I'm specifically talking about the phenomenal performance of utility stocks. Nine times out of ten the utility sector is something of a joke to growth-seekers, who laugh at the dividend-paying sector as a group unwilling and unable to dole out big gains. Guess who's having the last laugh now. And while I'm in the pulpit, I don't mind reminding you we explicitly made a bullish call on the utility sector back on October 10th, and reiterated their strength several times after that. I never got the impression anybody really cared, but now that it's time to take a look back, maybe they should have taken the hints. But I digress. What about 2015? I know the conventional wisdom here would be to assume this year's leaders will be next year's leaders, and last year's laggards will be next year's laggards. I'm telling you though, that's rarely how it works. I've got this data back to the 1990's, and if memory serves me correctly, only once has one sector led the market in back-to-back years. Far more often than not, we see a pretty good shakeup in the leading and lagging sectors. As some evidence to that end, we only have to look back to 2013 to see which groups were the hottest and coldest then. Take a look. Yep, consumer discretionary stocks, then healthcare stocks, then industrial stocks led the way. At the bottom of the barrel were utilities - 2014's top-dog - and telecom. Some sectors had two decent back-to-back years, but for most sectors, 2014 was notably different than 2013. Odds are good we'll see another switch-up in 2015's best and worst sectors, as we usually do. Great, but which sectors are poised to lead and lag in the coming year? Our guess is, energy stocks are going to post big numbers in 2015 as the price of oil rebounds. And, consumer discretionary stocks are poised to lead as well after a mediocre 2014. At the other end of the spectrum, it's unlikely the utilities sector is poised to do well in the coming year after a big 2014 rally. In fact, I'd be willing to bet (barring the beginning of a bear market and/or a recession) that utility stocks will underperform next year. I've also got a feeling healthcare and materials stocks are going to struggle. Some of this outlook is based on the shape of the charts above and some hard-learned experience with sector rotation. Some of it, however, is based on the fundamental data we looked at back on August 25th. Yes, we need to update this sector-based fundamental data for you, and we will this week, even though not a whole lot has changed in terms of growth rates. In the meantime, know that our favorite and least-favorite sectors for the coming year have as much fundamental context as they do a technical context. We'll talk more about that later. The only thing I don't like about this type of bigger-picture analysis is that it's static, and presumes nothing will change between now and this time next year. That's not how the real world works, though. Each sector is a moving target, and moves independently of the rest of the market's sectors. This is why we like to update these charts and each sector's outlook from time to time. We're going to do our best to do more of those updates in 2015, as sector trends are one of the most overlooked aspects of trading, yet also one of the most fruitful strategies you can apply to get more out of the market. I'm convinced that about 40% of an individual stock's movement is attributable to the sector it's in. Anyway, while this sector overview and outlook above opens an important discussion about 2015, we're not quite done with it yet. We're going to add some more details to it later this week (like showing you exactly how each and every sector performed and show you the corresponding fundamentals). In the meantime, we suggest you take these ideas and start thinking about how you can best apply them for yourself and for your portfolio in the coming year. As for the broad market, today didn't tell us anything new about where stocks might be headed next. Heck, it was an oddly-dull day for the market. Like we mentioned above, it's unlikely this will change at any point later this week. Don't get the wrong idea though. We're going to have plenty to discuss with you this week, mostly about what to expect in 2015. Oh, by the way.... don't forget to hit the new year running with these free stock picks.