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Thursday Sector Leaders: Financial, Consumer Products

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The best performing sector as of midday Thursday is the Financial sector, higher by 0.5%. Within that group, Elevance Health Inc (NYSE:ELV) and Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) are two of the day's stand-outs, showing a gain of 4.4% and 3.5%, respectively. Among financial ETFs, one ETF following the sector is the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE:XLF), which is up 0.3% on the day, and up 6.31% year-to-date. Elevance Health Inc, meanwhile, is up 13.07% year-to-date, and Discover Financial Services is up 11.00% year-to-date. DFS makes up approximately 0.6% of the underlying holdings of XLF.

The next best performing sector is the Consumer Products sector, up 0.3%. Among large Consumer Products stocks, Genuine Parts Co. (NYSE:GPC) and Estee Lauder Cos., Inc. (NYSE:EL) are the most notable, showing a gain of 12.7% and 4.4%, respectively. One ETF closely tracking Consumer Products stocks is the iShares U.S. Consumer Goods ETF (IYK), which is up 0.3% in midday trading, and up 1.69% on a year-to-date basis. Genuine Parts Co., meanwhile, is up 17.96% year-to-date, and Estee Lauder Cos., Inc., is down 1.05% year-to-date.

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Comparing these stocks and ETFs on a trailing twelve month basis, below is a relative stock price performance chart, with each of the symbols shown in a different color as labeled in the legend at the bottom:

Here's a snapshot of how the S&P 500 components within the various sectors are faring in afternoon trading on Thursday. As you can see, three sectors are up on the day, while five sectors are down.