With so many sectors of the market turning ugly, it’s no wonder that investors would consider clinging to what has worked for them.

Certain cyclical stocks, such as companies providing the materials, energy, machinery and supplies that have gone into building and modernizing fast-growing areas of the globe, have delighted investors until recently – showing more spunk than sectors dependent on U.S. consumers.

But with world growth slowing, analysts have been warning investors not to overemphasize the global boom theme.

Cyclicals got their name because they are deeply reliant on the cycles that inevitably play out in economies. When an economy is early in a cycle, or strengthening as it was after the tech bust from 2000-02, cyclical stocks climbed. But growth always reaches the point where there is a pause or slowdown. And stocks priced for robust early cycle growth disappoint investors when profits level off or ride the cycle down as it runs out of steam.

Merrill Lynch strategist Brian Belski warned clients in a recent note that he thinks too many investors are “waiting out” the recent downturn instead of paying attention to the factors that could limit profits.

“Investors share disdain for financials and affinity for energy and materials,” he said. “We are becoming increasingly concerned that investors seem to be ignoring the fact that the majority of international economies are forecasting lower (gross domestic product) growth over the next two years.”

Likewise, equity strategist Abhijit Chakrabortti of Morgan Stanley said in a recent report, “We expect to see portfolio rotation out of the crowded global cyclicals trade” and that he believes the trend is in its early stages.

This year, the materials select sector SPDR exchange-traded fund has declined about 4.5 percent, and selling increased sharply last month, with it dropping 10.4 percent. The industrial select SPDR has declined 13.9 percent for the year, with most of the losses occurring during the last month.

Meanwhile, the financial stock SPDR declined about 24 percent during the last three months, while the oil iPath Goldman Sachs ETF has climbed 40 percent.

Chakrabortti noted recently that investors were slow to react to the conditions that eventually undermined financial company profits, and he thinks investors are reluctant to absorb what lies ahead for global cyclical sectors.

“We are most negative,” he said, on stocks exposed to global construction and mining, U.S. residential and commercial construction and commercial aerospace. Among the stocks that concern him: Caterpillar, Terex, Copper Industries, Mueller Water Products, Wesco International, Honeywell, Ingersoll-Rand and Watsco.

He thinks those stock prices are overly high, given the likely slowdown. But he worries less about stocks such as General Dynamics and Danaher, “where earnings are not stretched relative to trend and where earnings volatility is likely to be low.” With lower earnings expectations, he also sees value in General Electric.

“While we accept the rising influence of emerging economies on the industrial earnings base, this proportion of earnings remains small in comparison to the U.S., where around 66 percent of earnings are generated for the entire industrial sector,” he said. Europe makes up another 16 percent, and economies there have been slowing too.

Asia and developing areas only accounted for 19 percent of industrial product sales in 2007, Chakrabortti said.

Meanwhile, “The threats to non-U.S. growth have grown significantly, with emerging economies facing high and persistently rising inflation, raising the risk of further material monetary tightening,” he said. With fuel costs rising, Morgan Stanley experts estimate that “project cancellation/delay is already running at three times the historical average rate,” he said.

That doesn’t mean developing nations are done building infrastructure. Chakrabortti said it does suggest earnings disappointments amid on oncoming “cyclical interruption.”

Gail MarksJarvis is a personal finance columnist for the Chicago Tribune and author of “Saving for Retirement without Living Like a Pauper or Winning the Lottery.” Contact her at gmarksjarvis@tribune.com.