Pursuits
Washout Worsens for U.S. Defensive Stocks as Sentiment Shifts
- Consumer staples stocks slip below 50-day technical threshold
- Short interest in household product ETF is most since 2015
Scott Brown: The Thinking of the Fed Has Changed
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Sentiment is turning against defensive companies in the U.S. stock market alarmingly quickly.
Shares of soapmakers, utility providers and phone companies are falling out of favor and fast, marking one of the S&P 500 Index’s biggest reversals of the year. The latest to fade are consumer-staples stocks, which just slumped below the 50-day moving average monitored by chart watchers. A selloff in drugmakers Wednesday also sent health-care shares below that level. The only other industries within the benchmark that have breached deeper short-term technical thresholds? Utilities and telecom stocks.