Thursday Sector Leaders: Materials, Energy

Looking at the sectors faring best as of midday Thursday, shares of Materials companies are outperforming other sectors, higher by 1.9%. Within that group, International Flavors & Fragrances (NYSE: IFF) and Allegheny Technologies (NYSE: ATI) are two of the day's stand-outs, showing a gain of 7.2% and 4.8%, respectively. Among the high volume ETFs, one ETF closely following materials stocks is the Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF (AMEX: XLB), which is up 1.7% on the day, and up 4.94% year-to-date...