Who Were the Outliers in the Consumer Space?

On February 19, 2016, the S&P Consumer Discretionary slightly outperformed the S&P Consumer Staples and the S&P 500 as a whole. The indexes had returns of 0.33%, 0.19%, and -0.00%, respectively.

On the other hand, the S&P Consumer Staples stocks have a monthly return of 0.45%, which is much higher than the -5.1% and -5.2% from the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary, respectively.

The top-losing stocks as of February 19, 2016, are as follows:

• VF Corporation (VFC) fell by 4.4% due to a fall in total revenues and a rise in net income in fiscal 4Q15.
• Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM) fell by 3.7%.
• WestRock (WRK) fell by 3.6%.
• Mondelez International (MDLZ) fell by 0.38%.
• Kellogg (K) fell by 0.36%.

The top-gaining stocks as of February 19, 2016, are as follows:

• Berry Plastics (BERY) rose by 4.1%.
• Crown Holdings (CCK) rose by 0.69% with a “buy” rating from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
• Flowers Foods (FLO) rose by 0.68%.
• Sealed Air (SEE) rose by 0.37%.

In this series, we’ll take a look at the performances of the above stocks, their price movements, and latest quarterly results.

The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLP) tracks a market-cap-weighted index of consumer staples stocks drawn from the S&P 500. XLP is the ETF of consumer goods.

Let’s start with VF Corporation.