Weekly Market Recap – Week Ending March 13, 2026
U.S. equity markets experienced broad-based weakness this week as investors remained cautious amid ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty and continued sector rotation. Most major equity benchmarks declined, with technology, industrial, and consumer discretionary sectors leading the pullback. Despite the broader market softness, the energy sector showed relative strength, supported by firm commodity prices and continued geopolitical tensions. At the same time, several individual stocks—particularly in energy, defense, and select technology names—continued to post strong gains over the past month, suggesting that investors are still selectively positioning in industries expected to benefit from the current global economic and geopolitical environment.
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In the below tables we use major ETF’s as a proxy for some major indexes as well as each of the sector groups into which we divide the overall markets. Tracking these over time provides a more defined picture of the US markets than simply tracking major indexes. This is followed by notable individual stock movers over the past month, and finally our full strategy outlook.
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Strategy Note, Week Ending March 13, 2026
Here is the key quote I submitted in the first paragraph of last week’s strategy note, “Macro traders said all eyes will be on energy markets when trading fully re-opens on Monday…The possibility of prolonged turmoil in the Middle East and the ripple effects of higher oil prices are giving money managers fresh reasons to sell equities and shift into safety.” The great rotation was once again on display.
Therefore, it was no surprise to our readers that market volatility as measured by the CBOE VIX index rose 5.8%. XLE, as highlighted on the top table above and the sector that performs most like oil prices, was the only one of the Sector ETFs to gain strongly. For those shifting into safety, low beta sectors (those less likely to change as much in the direction of the market) weathered last week’s storm better than their high-beta counterparts. Specifically, XLU (Utilities), with a Beta of 0.69 was the only other Select Sector SPDR to gain with an 0.2% gain on the week. The next best sector SPDR in terms of lowest price decline was XLP (Consumer Staples) with a 1.4% loss. XLP has the lowest Beta of 0.66.
In contrast, the two highest Beta sectors are XLK (Technology) with a Beta of 1.25 and XLY (Consumer Discretionary) with 1.30. Despite blaring headlines of a tech selloff, XLK was a middling as opposed to terrible performer with a loss of 2.1%. XLY, reflected its high beta status much better with the second greatest loss, -3.5%.
However, two major reversals of tremendous year-to-date price gains confounded our expectations. GDX, the VanEck Gold Miners ETF that recently had our highest rating of 5 lost 9%, more than halving its year-to-date gain to just 8.7%! In its related move, GLDM, the SPDR Mini Gold Shares ETV, declined a combined 3% on Thursday and Friday shaving its still-impressive year-to-date return to 15.8% from nearly 20%. Even more surprising to many during war, 5-rated ETF XAR, the SPDR Aerospace ETF, declined 5% on the week, more than halving its year-to-date gain to 5.7% from 11%. XAR was one of the focal points of our most recently submitted-for-publication blog in which we observed that the ETF and its stocks could be flying too high given stratospheric valuations. Despite that, we think the sub-sector’s largest stock, GE Aerospace (GE), should recover nicely and has room to run. Please read that full blog for more insights into the Aerospace and Energy sectors.
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