Financials. Oil. Financials. Oil. Financials. Dollar. Oil. Anyone look at the transports (IYT) lately? Rails and truckers specifically? It's as if fund managers have classified all stocks as financial trades or oil/dollar trades, and the media piles on and that's all we ever hear about. Doesn't the individual industries and business fundamentals matter? It doesn't seem like it matters for a lot of sectors, but anyone look at the transports lately? Rails and truckers specifically? (Just these two because we have lost the airlines and autos to "the dark side" and its futile to try to mount a rescue mission anytime soon)

But rails! One of the strongest, if not the strongest, old industrials sector charging ahead all year. First riding the ag and coal momentum on the back of rising energy prices (which was sometimes weird because higher oil prices hurt the rails' fuel input costs too). Then, even as the ags and coal got kneecapped when energy rolled over in July, the rails kept going, probably on the idea that lower energy would boost the economy, or lower energy would lower the rails' fuel costs. It's hard to make a correlation with any of these factors, and rarely do they work to trade off of in the stock price anyway. Either way, the rails have been one of the few sectors constantly fighting back this bear market. And look at the likes of Union Pacific (UNP)! Tagging all time highs after a minor pullback that people thought meant the rails have finally given up the ghost and was about to roll over.