Watchlists

Watchlists are very important. They allow you to monitor how sectors and industries are performing. Creating a watchlist with ETF's is the easiest approach I have found. I have two seperate watchlists, one breaks up the market into sectors and the other does the same for industries. I can then sort these watchlists by percentage change over any period. This is very helpful for finding parts of the market that are under or outperforming. In my watchlists I also include things such as commodities, currencies, and foreign markets. Below are some ETF's I use in my watchlists.

Sector:

XLB: Materials
XLE: Energy
XLF: Financials
XLI: Industrials
XLK: Technology
XLP: Consumer Staples
XLU: Utilities
XLV: Health Care
XLY: Consumer Discretionary


Industry:

DJP: Commodity Index
FXE: Euro
FXI: China
GDX: Gold Miners
GLD: Gold Spot Price
HHH: Internet XLP:
IAI: Brokers
IAK: Insurance
IAT: Regional Banks
IDU: Utilities
IGN: Networking
IHF: Healthcare Providers
IHI: Medical Devices
IYT: Transportation
IYZ: Telecommunications
KBE: Commercial Banks
MOO: Agri-Business
OIH: Oil Service
PBJ: Food and Beverage
PPA: Aerospace/Defense
PPH: Pharmaceuticals
SLX: Steel Producers
SMH: Semiconductors
SWH: Software
TAN: Solar Energy
USO: Crude Oil
XBI: Biotech
XRT: Retailers
FXY: Yen
FXB: Pound

$XAL: Airlines*

The $XAL is an index, not an ETF. The ticker may vary depending on what software package you are using. If you are interested in finding more ETF's to use, ETF Trends is a good place to look.