Here’s an interesting view that shows just how seismic the shift out of certain sectors has been.

Take a look at the Ideas & Research stocks page sorted by top member holdings.  You’ll see many of the stocks that have been our members’ favorites ever since we launched the site.  But shift your eye over to the “most added” column.  This is a measure of velocity showing whether the stocks have been added to portfolios at a faster- or slower-than-normal rate over the last several days.  Anything above one is faster than normal and anything below one is slower than normal.

Looking at the column, it quickly becomes evident that some of the most popular sectors of the past have fallen out of favor.  Canadian energy trusts like Pengrowth Energy Trust (PGH), Harvest Energy Trust (HTE), and Provident Energy Trust (PVX) have seen so little activity of late that they don’t even qualify for “most added” scores.  The same is true of big names in other formerly high flying areas like shipping — DryShips (DRYS) — and Brazil — the ETF iShares MSCI Brazil (EWZ).

Other former high flyers have seen lowered activity as well: Potash (POT), Mosaic (MOS), Suntech Power Holdings (STP), and LDK Solar (LDK) all have “most added” scores of 0.5 or lower.

So what stocks are investors favoring now?  It’s a mix of “safe” names and, believe it or not, financials.  GE (GE), Goldman Sachs (GS), Wells Fargo (WFC), Procter & Gamble (PG), and Wal-Mart (WMT) all have most added scores of 1.7 or higher, tops among the 50 most popular stocks on tickerspy.

It’s been a very tough period in the markets, and, looking at performance last month, only 32 of the 2,800 Pros we track have top holdings that have combined to deliver positive performance.

Topping the list right now is Sandler O’Neill Asset Management, a hedge fund that’s been around since 1996 and which focuses on financial institutions.  While the longer term performance of Sandler’s holdings, as estimated by tickerspy, hasn’t been great, the holdings have been boosted more recently by sharp rebounds in select financial names.  Among the best performers have been BB&T (BBT), TCF Financial (TCB), Wells Fargo (WFC), and First Horizon National (FHN).