Financials have been the news recently as banks have been selling off. What is The Pivotal Perspective on this sector?

First of all, take a look at the plain XLF chart without any pivots. See that spike low on 8/24/2015? Well that low goes into the calculation of the yearly and half yearly pivots for 2016. So I'm less certain than they will work as usual.

Example: we are in a situation where XLF is down quite a lot, but unlike almost everything else it hasn't reached its YS1 yet.

While we can watch to see if those levels activate any programs (the spike on 8/24 sure does), it may also be worthwhile to watch the S&P Financial Select Index or IXM. This did not have the same spike low, and I think the pivots "should be" more accurate. Its long term pivots are on the next chart below. As you can see, it is already below the YS1.

Here's the standard view including both long term and medium term pivots. The 1/20 low was on Q1S2.