The Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLC) closed up 2.24% on Wednesday amid a sea of green market sectors and positive news that President Trump plans to delay automotive tariffs for up to six months.
The Communication Services Select Sector Index aims to offer an effective representation of the communication services sector of the S&P 500 Index. To that end, the top 10 holdings in XLC include some big names: Facebook, Google, DIsney, Activision Blizzard, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Charter, and Netflix.
The communications services sector overall is still a relatively new offering that was formed in late 2018, when 26 companies from the telecommunication services, consumer discretionary and information technology sectors were shuffled to a new Communications Services sector, creating GICS Code 50 – a combination of old media and new media.
In that short time, though, the sector has seen a significant amount of movement. As echoed by the Communication Services Select Sector Index, the communications services sector’s constituents represent some of the most notorious stocks of the past few years, like Facebook and Netflix, stocks that also make up the Nasdaq and other index holdings and reflect the overall market in many ways.
Included in the move were three of the five FAANG stocks, GOOGL, FB, and NFLX, while the other two stocks, Amazon.com (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL), remained in the consumer discretionary and technology sectors respectively, offering investors with a diverse collection of component companies, some with significant upside mobility, and others with much less.
According to most analysts, Alphabet is expected to be the biggest driver of revenue growth, accounting for 8.1% of the total 20.1% expected growth in 2018, which is at least partly due to its two classes of shares, which elevates the revenue growth figures.
The prospectus states, “The Fund seeks to provide investment results that, before expenses, correspond generally to the price and yield performance of publicly traded equity securities of companies in the Communication Services Select Sector Index. The Fund invests at least 95% of its total assets in the securities comprising the Index.”
Some analysts are skeptical about the future of communications however.
“The regulatory pendulum tends to swing from ‘not enough’ to ‘too much,’ and it will take time to balance,” says Scott Wren, senior global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in St. Louis. “In the meantime, we have to think about over-regulation.”
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