NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - With Autumn beckoning, portfolio managers have begun reshuffling their decks.

In August, the tech shares which provided the market with so much of its juice through the year have dropped out of favor, as have financial stocks and consumer cyclicals.

Justin Lahart, senior writer at CNN/Money, talks about the shifting current on Wall Street. Play video (Real or Windows Media)

Breaking it down further, it's the most volatile names -- "high beta" in the lingo of Wall Street -- that have dropped the most. The Amex Biotech index has dropped 8.5 percent since the month started. The Goldman Sachs Internet index is down 11.3 percent.

Taking their places have been stodgier issues. The big winners so far this month have been energy stocks. Also gaining have been consumer staples -- companies like Procter & Gamble, which make products people use every day, making them somewhat immune to downturns in the economy.

So, what should we make of all this? First off, it looks like investors may have recognized that the big moves in many stocks had gone well beyond the fundamentals. Yes, prospects for an outfit like Corning look better than in the fall, when its stock was priced like the company was about to go out of business. But the 695-percent move it made from its October bottom to its July top may have been a bit much.

Second, investors appear to be worried that the market will put on of its fall flops, but they don't want to get out of the game. Consumer staples stocks offer some protection from that, as do the more stolid utility companies.

And energy? Right now it seems like a perfect hedge. The big worry in the market right now is that high Treasury yields will snuff stocks, but higher yields are also seen as a forecast of higher inflation. In inflationary times, of course, energy prices head up.