The Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR (XLY – ETF report) has outperformed the broader S&P 500 sectors so far this year. Meanwhile, most of the sectors are finding it difficult to end in positive territory. The sector was the best performer among the S&P 500 sectors in both year-to-date and one year period.

This sector, which tracks the performance of S&P 500 consumer discretionary stocks, has gained nearly 3.9% this year, in contrast to a loss of 5.8% in the S&P 500 index. Moreover, the sector has a 1-year gain of 11.9%, comparing favorably to the S&P 500’s loss of 2.2%.

Also, the consumer discretionary sector registered a solid gain of nearly 0.8% in last one month, while the S&P 500 index has declined more than 1.6%. Favorable economic scenario including strong labor market condition and plunge in oil prices played an important role in boosting the sector. In this scenario, we have highlighted five stocks from this sector which have proven to be star performers in this sector in recent times.    

Concerns Hurting Benchmarks

Recent slump in markets following several concerns including global growth worries and decline in oil prices dragged down most of the major benchmarks into the negative territory for the year. A flurry of weak economic data out of China emerged as the main reasons behind the global growth worries over the last couple of months.

The preliminary September China’s PMI survey by Caixin Media and Markit that released yesterday came in weaker than expected, with the index dropping to its lowest level in more than 6 years at 47. Moreover, The Asian Development Bank (ADB) trimmed China’s economic growth forecast for 2015 to 6.8% from an earlier projection of 7.2%.

Meanwhile, plunge in oil prices also had a negative impact on markets in recent times. The prices of WTI crude oil and Brent crude oil plunged again yesterday by 4.2% and 2.8% to $44.48 and $47.75, respectively, following increase in gasoline inventories.