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Technology isn’t the only source of leadership for the markets this year.
The consumer discretionary sector is the second-best performer in 2020. The XLY consumer discretionary ETF, led by Etsy and Amazon, has gained more than 20% over that stretch, fueled by a surge in online spending during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, told CNBC on Monday that the group should continue to lead the market higher into the end of the year.
“In recent months we’ve seen leadership brought into very key sectors like consumer discretionary and industrials as well which we see signs of longer-term green shoots and cyclicality which we think should be support for the bull cycle and additional upside,” Wald said on “Trading Nation.”
Wald measures consumer discretionary’s leadership by weighting high-momentum stocks against low- momentum ones. He says the number of high-momentum stocks has jumped in recent months driven by household durables and specialty retailers.
“The point I want to stress is that this is a very broad-base move across the sector, both big and small stocks, but … to call out one name within this broad list, that would be homebuilder Lennar which is breaking through 15-year resistance dating back to the year 2005. We see more upside there in Lennar,” said Wald.
Delano Saporu, founder of New Street Advisors, is eyeing one of the top performers, Amazon, for more gains.
“I definitely think it can still last,” Saporu said during the same “Trading Nation” segment. “We’re coming up on a holiday season where a lot of people hopefully have some things on their shopping list. … We’re going to see a lot of people looking to put money to work after they take care of their basic necessities.”
Amazon has yet to disclose total sales from its Prime Day last week , but did report that third-party sellers generated more than $3.5 billion in sales over its two-day event, 60% higher than a year earlier.
Saporu is also watching Nike as another top consumer discretionary stock.
“You saw them stabilize top line. They were lower in the retail footprint, but they had digital sales increasing, and I think that was really important as they tried to look to shift their strategy during this time, and they’re also still paying a dividend to their investors, which I think is really important,” said Saporu.
Nike yields 0.77%. Shares are up 26% this year.
Disclosure: New Street Advisors holds AMZN and NKE.
