SPDR Sectors vs TOPIX-17: A Mapping Table for Cross-Market Comparison
Putting US and Japanese sector returns side by side is only useful if you know which rows are actually comparable. Some pairs are clean. Some are close enough with a caveat. Three are traps. Educational only, not investment advice.
Clean pairs
| US (SPDR) | Japan (TOPIX-17) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| XLE Energy | Energy Resources | Both are oil and gas weighted; both track crude. |
| XLV Health Care | Pharmaceutical | Japan's is pure pharma — no US-style managed care or hospitals. |
| XLU Utilities | Electric Power & Gas | Both rate-sensitive and domestically regulated. |
| XLB Materials | Raw Materials & Chemicals | Japan's skews more to specialty chemicals. |
| XLRE Real Estate | Real Estate | Japan's includes developers, not only REITs. |
Close, with a caveat
| US (SPDR) | Japan (TOPIX-17) | The caveat |
|---|---|---|
| XLI Industrials | Machinery + Construction & Materials | Japan splits capital goods from construction; sum them before comparing. |
| XLP Consumer Staples | Foods | Japan's excludes household products and staples retail — those sit in Retail Trade. |
| XLF Financials | Banks + Financials (ex-Banks) | Sum the two, or you are comparing half a sector. |
The three traps
XLK Technology vs Electric Appliances & Precision Instruments. This is the most common mistake. XLK is software and mega-cap platforms. The Japanese bucket is semiconductor equipment, components and precision instruments — hardware, capex-cycle, export-driven. When XLK rallies on a software multiple re-rating and Japan's Electric Appliances does not follow, nothing is broken; they are different exposures. Compare Electric Appliances to the US semiconductor complex, not to XLK as a whole.
XLY Consumer Discretionary vs Retail Trade. XLY is dominated by two mega-caps and includes autos, restaurants and travel. Japan's Retail Trade is domestic retailers, and Japanese autos are a separate sector entirely. A one-to-one read here tells you almost nothing.
XLC Communication Services has no Japanese counterpart. Telecoms and media are distributed across IT & Services and other buckets. There is no row to compare it to; leave it out rather than forcing a pair.
The steel and non-ferrous gap
Japan carries Steel & Non-Ferrous Metals as its own sector. In the US that exposure is folded into Materials at a small weight. If you are trying to read the global industrial cycle, Japan's steel line is a cleaner signal than XLB is.
How to use the table
Run the comparison in this order: energy → financials (summed) → industrials (summed) → pharma → utilities. Those five give you a real read on whether the two markets agree on the macro. Then look at the three traps separately, as their own question, rather than as a divergence to explain.
The short version
Five clean pairs, three summed pairs, three traps, one orphan. Comparing the clean and summed rows first is what makes a side-by-side table informative rather than decorative.
Sector PulseWeekly sector performance for Japan (TOPIX-17) and the US (SPDR), in English — what led, what lagged, and where the two markets disagreed. Data only; not investment advice.
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- PaperLens — AI and semiconductor paper explainers, subscription reading.