Sam Stovall's Sector Watch December 4, 2007, 5:43PM EST

Stocks: Will December Bring Cheer?

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From Standard & Poor's Equity Research

Avg. Monthly S&P 500 Price Changes

Best/Worst Performing Sectors & Subindustries

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While it may be intellectually stimulating, and even occasionally profitable, to be aware of, and even embrace the groups that have historically done well in a particular month, we would not advise investing your hard-earned dollars based solely on past single-month returns.

Industry Momentum List Update

Here is this week's list of the industries in the S&P 1500 with Relative Strength Rankings of "5" (price performances in the past 12 months that were among the top 10% of subindustries in the S&P 1500), along with a stock with the highest S&P STARS (tie goes to the highest market value).

Subindustry	Company (Ticker)	S&P STARS Rank	Price (11/30/07)
Auto Parts & Equipment	Standard Motor (SMP)	4	$7
Coal & Consumable Fuels	Peabody Energy (BTU)	4	$56
Commodity Chemicals	Lyondell Chemical (LYO)	3	$47
Computer Hardware	Apple (AAPL)	4	$182
Construction & Engineering	Jacobs Engineering (JEC)	3	$84
Construction & Farm Machinery	Manitowoc (MTW)	5	$44
Diversified Metals & Mining	Freeport-McMoRan (FCX)	2	$99
Education Services	Career Education (CECO)	5	$29
Fertilizers & Agr. Chem.	Monsanto (MON)	3	$99
Health-Care Services	Laboratory Corp. (LH)	5	$73
Industrial Gases	Air Products (APD)	3	$99
Internet Retail	Amazon.com (AMZN)	2	$91
Life Sciences	Thermo Fisher (TMO)	5	$58
Tires & Rubber	Goodyear Tire (GT)	3	$29

Source: Standard & Poor's Equity Research

Stovall is chief investment strategist for Standard & Poor's Equity Research Services .

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