Holdings: GE, FSTR, UPS

Industrials has been under-performing the S&P 500 since mid-summer.  We feel this slowdown is temporary and expect a positive long-term trend by Q2 2012.  Until recently, the Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI), a measure of the health of the manufacturing industry, has been trending downwards below 50, however there was news yesterday that PMI increased an entire point and construction spending was 1.4% higher in August.

We have identified that there is a large need to diversify and increase our holdings in the sector so that more large cap industrials are part of our portfolio.

Given our research, we feel that the best course of action is to stay neutral with the S&P 500 weighting.

 

Access the full report here: Fall 2011 Industrials Sector Report