Another tough week likely for retail, utility and telecom stocks

US stocks were more or less flat last week, disguising a major shift in investors' portfolios at the sector and currency levels that is likely to continue this week as long as there are no major surprises from corporate earnings.

The Standard & Poor's 500 lost about 0.5 per cent, its first decline in about a month.

Rate-sensitive stocks such as utilities and telecoms registered much bigger losses, plunging from Tuesday onwards after the European Central Bank hinted that it could pull a U-turn on its monetary stimulus policy. Just a couple of months ago, analysts believed that the world would follow the ECB into a state of "negative interest rates", where banks are encouraged to charge savers to park their money in deposit accounts. Shortly after the ECB's hint on the U-turn on stimulus policy, the response in bond and stock markets worldwide made Tuesday what economists at brokerage Bank of America Merrill Lynch called: "the day the QE died".