The Quiet Leaders: What’s Been Outperforming the Market All Year
Looking at my Relative Strength Dashboard and combining it with IBD’s RS data, which ranks stocks and ETFs against over 11,000 tickers across the entire market, a clear group of long-term leaders emerges.
These are not just beating the S&P 500, they are outperforming almost everything.
Here is what has dominated across 1-year RS, 6-month RS, 3-month RS, and 1-month RS:
Biotech: IBB, IHI, XPH, PBE Biotech consistently shows up at the top regardless of timeframe. It has been one of the most reliable pockets of strength in the entire market, even during periods when growth cooled off.
Metals and Mining: XME, GDX, SIL, SLX, GLD, SLV This entire complex has been a powerhouse. Industrial metals, gold miners, silver, broad miners. Every category keeps landing near the top of the RS rankings. This is structural strength, not a short-term theme.
Chips (Semiconductors): Semis have shown strong RS over 1-year, 6-month, and 3-month windows. The only softness has been in the past month, and even that looks more like normal digestion after a big run.
Foreign Markets: Canada and Brazil consistently rank near the top across multiple timeframes.
Bottom Line: When RS leadership shows up in every timeframe, and across 11,000 plus tickers, it is not random. Biotech and metals and mining have been the real leaders all year.
This is why I rely on Relative Strength. Leadership is obvious when you measure it.
