As part of our study into the history of bear markets (see ), we've looked at the performance of every UK sector since the onset of the current bear market at the start of August last year. The results are shown in the table below the advert. We also looked at the performance of various sectors in every bear market or correction since 1965.
Over time, all sectors have lost money on average during bear markets. That's not to say that every sector has lost money during every bear market. Certain individual sectors can do very well during particular bear phases. For example, tobacco achieved positive annualised absolute returns of 21.4 per cent during the long and savage bear market of 2000-03.
SECTOR PERFORMANCE, 31 JUL 2007 - 25 JAN 2008