NEW YORK — As Wall Street looked to Capitol Hill for details of government moves to shore up the nation’s banking system, health care and information technology usurped the once-mighty financial sector on the Standard & Poor’s 500.
“Financials have totally deteriorated,” Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P, said of the sector’s 80 percent plunge from Oct. 9, 2007 — the height of the market — to Monday’s close.
On Tuesday, however, financials led the market’s strong rebound from another beating during the prior session, which had stocks nearing 12-year lows, after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke calmed investors by downplaying any notion of nationalizing major banks.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 236.16 points, or 3.3 percent, to 7,350.94. Snapping a six-day losing streak, the S&P 500 added 29.81 points, or 4 percent, to 773.14, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 54.11 points, or 3.9 percent, to 1,441.83.
On Oct. 9, 2007, the market valuation for the financial sector stood at $2.77 trillion and represented 20.1 percent of the S&P.But financial shares now account for 9.2 percent of the S&P 500, with a market valuation of less than $598 billion.
Health care was 11.6 percent of the S&P in October 2007, with a market valuation of $1.6 trillion. Its slice of the S&P pie rose to almost 17 percent of the index as of Monday night, with its market valuation falling to nearly $1.1 trillion, a slide of 30.5 percent.
“If you lose only 30 percent compared to 80 percent, your standing moves up,” Silver blatt said of the health-care sector displacing financials in the top slot on the S&P.
Technology has also come a long way, rising from its third-place ranking in October 2007 — with a market value of $2.24 trillion — to the second spot and a market value of $1 trillion, just under 17 percent of the S&P 500.
