The last time we reviewed Consumer Staples, in August, we were bullish and looking for a decent gain. It has been about six months now and there has been very little movement, but our message today is to not forget about these stocks. The companies that make up this sector are mostly ones that we are familiar with in our every day lives you probably have many of their products in your home. Procter & Gamble, Walgreen and Hershey are a few of these businesses.

The chart below shows the AMEX Consumer Staples Index (IXR). As you can see, the index is just about to bounce off of its support line again (the bottom red line). It has not violated that line yet so we believe that it will start steadily heading higher from here. You can also see that this all comes at the same time that the Stochastics indicator fell into oversold territory, this serves as a confirmation of our bullishness on this index. We still believe that 260 is a reasonable goal for this index but you might want to wait until it crosses back above 234. We would put a stop at around 228.

Over the last year, a few of the big winners in this sector have been Procter & Gamble Co. (PG), PepsiCo Inc. (PEP), Kroger Co. (KR) and the star of the index, Whole Foods Market Inc. (WFMI) with about a 60% gain. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. (CCE) are two of the poorer performers over the last year. If you're looking to invest in the sector directly, iShares has an exchange traded fund that is similar to the AMEX Consumer Staples Index. It trades under the symbol IYK and is based on the Dow Jones U.S. Consumer Goods Index.

Price Headley is the founder and chief analyst of BigTrends.com.