The 2013 edition of the Almanac looks at the historic monthly performance of the FTSE 350 sectors. Here we look at the Food & Drug Retailers sector.

The following chart plots the average out-performance of the FTSE 350 Food & Drug Retailers sector over the FTSE 100 Index by month since 1999. For example, since 1999 on average the Food & Drug Retailers sector has under-performed the FTSE 100 Index by 2.8 percentage points in January.

Observations:

1. The strongest months have beem August and September – the sector has under-performed the market only four times in the past 14 years in August.
2. The weakest months have been January and October – the sector has out-performed the market only four times in January in the last 13 years.

The seven stocks in the FTSE 350 Food & Drug Retailers sector [NMX5330] are-