One week in the books

Quick way to know if you're in the right frame of mind? Having a positive return and exceeding the performance of the S&P 500. So you should be up at least 1.1% for the first five trading days of 2011.

Hong Kong was the top performing country via the EWH up 4.7%.

Back in the U.S., the top performing sector of the week was Technology and given the Winter Consumer Electronics Show ended today its shouldn't be a surprise. Semiconductors such as NVDA up 29%, ENTR up 10.7%, and ARMH up 6.8% despite a down day on Fri.

Health Care was the second best sector as all the HMOs (CVH, CI, UNH, WLP, AET) had good gains (between 5 and 9%) as word that most are requesting anywhere from 28-50% premium increases for individual policy holders beginning in March. Anyone get the feeling they really don't care about people.

Financials were the third best sector but since I don't trust most of the financials save for a local bank or credit union, I'm not willing to risk any money in that manipulated sector.

Industrials were fourth best led by Aerospace & Defense. LLL up 10.3%, RTN up 7.8%.

Discretionary was fifth led by two casinos and PCLN. WYNN up 14%, MGM up 10.3%, PCLN up 9.9%.

Utilities and Telecom were flat for the week with notable exceptions I don't recognize.

The three underperforming sectors overall begin with Energy even though oil prices are at one year highs.

Materials is next although Coal had a great week with PCX up 18.9%, ICO up 10.9%, and ANR up 8.1%. Agriculture favorite POT up 7.5% despite being down 2 points on Fri.

Consumer Staples was the worst performing sector.