When most investors think about dynamic sectors, technology springs to mind first. After all, what’s more impressive than a small-cap cybersecurity stock or cloud-computing startup that doubles your money in short order? But lately technology hasn’t quite been able to keep up with a select group of rather old-school stocks. Select materials companies, including oil and gas firms as well as metal and chemical companies, have been booming — and outperforming even big-name picks like Apple AAPL, +0.71% and Alphabet GOOGL, +1.34% GOOG, +1.24% in 2018. Sure, some stocks have been under pressure — like Freeport-McMoRan FCX, -1.07% , which has tumbled 12% in the last month after reporting poor earnings, or Arconic ARNC, +1.99% , which imploded on fears of a trade war and is currently down over 30% so far this year. via