Sector Relative Strength Dashboard Excel: Track 2026's Leadership Rotation

Sector relative strength dashboard excel is the spreadsheet you want open right now, because the leadership of this market is quietly changing hands. Through the first half of 2026 the S&P 500 has climbed roughly 8 percent, but the engine driving it is no longer the handful of mega-cap technology names that carried 2023 and 2024. As tech wobbled in late June on worries about ballooning AI capital spending and stretched valuations, money rotated into energy, industrials, utilities, and financials. Energy alone is up more than 20 percent year to date. The cleanest way to see that rotation - and to act on it before it shows up in the headlines - is relative strength: measuring each sector against the index rather than in isolation. This guide shows you how to build a working sector relative strength dashboard in Excel using live MarketXLS formulas, and it comes with a downloadable template that ranks all eleven S&P 500 sectors versus SPY and scores each one.

The post pairs with a downloadable that pulls live returns for every sector ETF, computes a relative strength ratio against the S&P 500, ranks the sectors, overlays moving-average trend and RSI momentum, and rolls it all into a composite RS score with a rotation playbook and an allocation planner.

Key Data Table - The Sector Relative Strength Universe

The table below lays out the universe the dashboard tracks: the eleven SPDR sector ETFs measured against SPY, the S&P 500 benchmark. The number that matters is the RS ratio, calculated as one plus the sector's return divided by one plus the benchmark's return. Above 1.00 means the sector is leading the index; below 1.00 means it is lagging. Every value in the live template updates through MarketXLS. The figures shown here are illustrative snapshots for context, not quotes.

The story in that column is hard to miss. The leaders are the classic late-cycle and value cohort - energy, utilities, industrials, financials - while technology and consumer discretionary, the growth darlings, sit at the bottom with RS ratios below 0.96 and RSI readings under 50. That is what a leadership rotation looks like in a single screen.

What Relative Strength Actually Measures

Relative strength, in the sense used here, is not the RSI oscillator most traders know (though the dashboard includes RSI too, as a momentum overlay). Relative strength in the rotation sense is a simple ratio of performance: how a sector is doing compared to a benchmark over the same window.

The math is deliberately plain:

RS Ratio = (1 + Sector Return) / (1 + Benchmark Return)

If energy is up 22.4 percent year to date and the S&P 500 is up 8.19 percent, the RS ratio is 1.224 divided by 1.0819, which is about 1.131. That single number tells you energy has outpaced the index by roughly 13 percent on a compounded basis. Run the same calculation for every sector and sort the results, and you have an instant ranking of where leadership lives.

Why use a ratio instead of just subtracting returns? Because the ratio is scale-independent and stacks cleanly across different lookback windows. You can compute it on a year-to-date basis, quarter-to-date, or month-to-date and compare the readings to see whether a sector's leadership is accelerating or fading. A sector whose YTD RS ratio is 1.13 but whose MTD RS ratio has slipped below 1.00 is a leader that is starting to roll over - exactly the kind of early warning a static returns table will not give you.

The concept traces back to the relative rotation work popularized by technical analysts, but you do not need exotic software to apply it. A spreadsheet with live data does the job, and it lets you define the universe, the benchmark, and the lookback on your own terms.

The 2026 Rotation in Context

The macro backdrop explains why relative strength is so useful in the second half of 2026. Several forces are pushing leadership away from the megacaps:

• Tech valuation fatigue. After two years of AI-driven gains, the market has grown nervous about the scale of capital spending required to sustain the theme. Semiconductors slipped toward correction territory in June, and the cap-weighted technology sector has lagged the broader index.
• Energy strength despite softer oil. Energy has been the standout sector of 2026, up more than 20 percent, even as WTI crude eased back toward 70 dollars on hopes of Middle East calm. Strength that holds up while the underlying commodity softens is a sign of genuine sector demand, not just a commodity spike.
• An industrial recovery. The ISM manufacturing readings have been pointing to a recovering industrial economy, a tailwind for industrials and materials that sits outside the tech complex.
• A patient Fed. With the policy rate steady in the 3.50 to 3.75 percent range and the market pricing a low probability of a near-term hike, rate-sensitive value sectors like utilities and financials have found footing.

None of this is a forecast. It is the current weather, and relative strength is the instrument that reads it. When the rotation reverses - and it always does eventually - the same dashboard will show technology's RS ratio climbing back above 1.00 long before the financial press declares tech leadership restored.

Building the Dashboard in Excel with MarketXLS

Here is how the live template assembles its numbers. Every data point is a MarketXLS formula, so the dashboard refreshes whenever you recalculate. All of the functions below were verified against the MarketXLS function library before publishing.

Step 1: Pull each sector's return

The core inputs are the period returns for every sector ETF. MarketXLS exposes these directly:

=CHANGEPERCENTYTD("XLE")     → Energy year-to-date percent return
=CHANGEPERCENTQTD("XLE")     → Quarter-to-date percent return
=CHANGEPERCENTMTD("XLE")     → Month-to-date percent return

Layering all three windows side by side is what lets you judge whether a sector's leadership is building or fading.

Step 2: Compute the relative strength ratio

With the benchmark return in hand, the RS ratio is a single cell:

=(1 + CHANGEPERCENTYTD("XLE")/100) / (1 + CHANGEPERCENTYTD("SPY")/100)

In the template the benchmark ticker lives in a yellow input cell, so you can swap SPY for QQQ, IWM, or any index you prefer and the entire ranking re-sorts.

Step 3: Rank and confirm the trend

A plain Excel RANK function turns the RS ratios into a 1-to-11 leaderboard. To confirm that a high RS ratio is backed by a healthy trend rather than a single-day pop, the dashboard overlays distance from the moving averages and momentum:

=PERCENTCHANGEFROM50_DAYMOVINGAVERAGE("XLE")   → Distance above/below the 50-day average
=PERCENTCHANGEFROM200_DAYMOVINGAVERAGE("XLE")  → Distance above/below the 200-day average
=RSI("XLE")                                    → 14-day RSI momentum reading

A sector that is leading on RS, trading above both moving averages, and showing an RSI in the 55 to 70 zone is a high-conviction leader. One that leads on RS but sits below its 50-day average is a warning that the leadership may be hollow.

Step 4: Roll it into a composite score

The dashboard's RS Score combines the three signals - relative strength tier, momentum, and trend - into one 0-to-4 number so you can sort the whole table by a single column:

=ROUND(
   IF(RS_Ratio >= Strong_Threshold, 2, IF(RS_Ratio <= Weak_Threshold, 0, 1))
 + IF(RSI > 55, 1, IF(RSI < 45, -1, 0))
 + IF(AND(Above_50DMA, Above_200DMA), 1, 0), 0)

The strong and weak thresholds are yellow input cells (defaulting to 1.02 and 0.98), so you control how demanding the screen is.

Real Formulas You Can Reuse

These are the MarketXLS functions the template relies on, each verified in the function library:

Because every cell is a function rather than a pasted value, the dashboard you build today is the same dashboard you open six months from now, just with fresh numbers. There is no scraping, no manual updating, and no copy-and-paste from a website. MarketXLS pulls licensed market data straight into the cells. You can read more about how the MarketXLS technical analysis functions work and browse the full MarketXLS function library for related metrics.

Inside the Template

The downloadable workbook has six sheets, each with its own "MarketXLS Functions Used" reference so you always know which formula powers which cell.

• How To Use - a plain-English tour of every sheet and how the relative strength ratio is defined.
• RS Dashboard - the core screener. All eleven sectors plus the benchmark, with price, YTD/QTD/MTD returns, RS ratio, RS rank, distance from the 50- and 200-day averages, RSI, a trend signal, and the composite RS score. RS ratios are color-coded green for leaders and red for laggards.
• Scenario Analysis - a what-if table that flexes the rotation thesis across three cases (accelerates, stalls, reverses) against a sample sector tilt, so you can stress-test your own view.
• Rotation Playbook - an educational framework mapping each RS tier to an overweight, neutral, or underweight stance, with the signals to watch for a change.
• Allocation Planner - turns your portfolio size and a maximum single-sector cap into dollar position sizes weighted toward the strongest sectors.
• RS Comparison Matrix - a color-scaled leaders-versus-laggards view of every sector's RS ratio and RSI versus the benchmark.

The input cells are yellow throughout. Change the benchmark, the thresholds, your portfolio size, or the sector tilt, and every dependent sheet recalculates.

Download the templates:

• - Pre-filled with illustrative data so you can see the layout immediately
• - Live-updating formulas for every sector

How to Read the Dashboard

A few practical habits make a relative strength dashboard far more useful than a static returns table.

Watch the slope, not just the level. A sector with an RS ratio of 1.05 that has been climbing for eight weeks is a stronger signal than one at 1.10 that has been falling. Compare the YTD, QTD, and MTD RS readings to infer direction. The dashboard puts all three windows on the same row precisely so you can do this at a glance.

Confirm with trend. Relative strength tells you a sector is outperforming, but it does not tell you the sector is in an uptrend - a falling sector can still outperform a faster-falling index. That is why the dashboard pairs RS with distance from the 50- and 200-day moving averages. Leadership that is confirmed by price above both averages is the highest-quality kind.

Mind the extremes. An RSI above 70 on a leading sector flags that the move may be stretched and due for a pause. An RSI below 30 on a laggard can mark the kind of washout that precedes a relative strength turn. The dashboard color-scales the RSI column so the extremes jump out.

Re-rank, do not predict. The point of the tool is not to forecast which sector wins next quarter. It is to keep an honest, current ranking of where leadership actually is, so your positioning reflects the market in front of you rather than the market of six months ago.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a sector relative strength dashboard in Excel? It is a spreadsheet that ranks each stock-market sector by how it is performing relative to a benchmark like the S&P 500, rather than in isolation. Using live MarketXLS formulas, it computes a relative strength ratio for every sector ETF, ranks them, and overlays trend and momentum so you can see where market leadership is concentrated and how it is shifting.

How is the relative strength ratio calculated? The ratio is one plus the sector's return divided by one plus the benchmark's return over the same period. A value above 1.00 means the sector is beating the index; below 1.00 means it is trailing. In Excel with MarketXLS it is a single formula: =(1+CHANGEPERCENTYTD("XLE")/100)/(1+CHANGEPERCENTYTD("SPY")/100).

Which sectors are leading in 2026? On an illustrative year-to-date basis, the value and cyclical sectors - energy, utilities, industrials, and financials - have shown the strongest relative strength, while technology and consumer discretionary have lagged. The template updates with live data, so you can confirm the current ranking yourself rather than relying on a snapshot.

Is relative strength the same as RSI? No. RSI (the Relative Strength Index) is a momentum oscillator that compares a single security's recent gains to its recent losses. Relative strength in the rotation sense compares one asset's performance to another's. The dashboard uses both: the RS ratio for ranking sectors and RSI as a momentum overlay.

Do I need to update the data manually? No. Every data cell in the formula version is a MarketXLS function that pulls licensed market data directly into Excel. When you recalculate, prices, returns, moving averages, and RSI all refresh automatically. The static sample is provided only so you can preview the layout.

Can I change the benchmark or the sector universe? Yes. The benchmark ticker and the strong and weak RS thresholds are yellow input cells. Swap SPY for QQQ or IWM, adjust the thresholds, and the rankings and color coding re-sort instantly. You can also add or remove tickers to track industries or a custom basket.

The Bottom Line

A sector relative strength dashboard turns a confusing tape into a single, sortable ranking of where leadership actually lives. In the second half of 2026, with money rotating out of mega-cap technology and into energy, industrials, and other value and cyclical corners of the market, that ranking is changing faster than the headlines can keep up. Relative strength is the instrument that reads the change in real time, and a spreadsheet built on live MarketXLS formulas is all it takes to keep that instrument pointed at the market in front of you. Download the template, set your benchmark and thresholds, and let the data tell you where leadership is heading.

To see how MarketXLS brings live market data, technical indicators, and screening into Excel, visit MarketXLS or book a demo.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not investment advice. Relative strength is a backward-looking momentum measure and does not predict future returns. Always do your own research or consult a licensed financial professional before making investment decisions.