As of late afternoon Monday, and well after the S&P 500 saw its intra-day high, the number of stocks in the S&P 500 that traded to 52-week highs reached 94, or 18.8% of the index. This represents the highest amount of new highs in a single day since August 1st.
The table below breaks out the number of new highs in the S&P 500 by sector. On both an absolute and a percentage basis, the Industrials sector saw the greatest number of news highs (23), which worked out to 37.1% of the stocks in the sector.
Other sectors where a large percentage of stocks hit 52-week highs were Health Care (27.8%) and Materials (25.8%). With the market firmly in positive territory, it was defensive sectors like Telecom Services (0.0%) and Utilities (3.2%) that saw the smallest percentage of new highs today.
