While the S&P 500 has hovered around the 4100 level since April, there has been a lot of churn beneath the surface, with the highest fliers rising to truly spectacular levels before crashing back to earth. THREAD/1
To help visualize this, I indexed the various sectors & styles to the Feb 2020 (pre-Covid) high in the S&P 500. This first chart shows the S&P 500 w/ its eleven sectors. The dispersion in sector performance was very wide last fall (mostly due to energy), but it has tightened. /2
Next, the four style boxes (Russell indices). See the recent lopsided performance by large-cap growth, which then passed the baton to value and small caps a few months ago. Whatever dispersion existed last fall has dwindled, while the S&P 500 churns sideways. /3
Now let’s add in some of the momentum plays, including the meme stocks, the secular growers, and high yield debt-levered stocks. (I used the Goldman Sachs thematic baskets for all of these.) Note that the upper scale expands from 5000 to 7000. /4
Next, let’s add the “non-profitable tech” group and recent liquid IPOs (the ultimate momentum plays). We have to expand the upper scale 12000 to fit in their meteoric rise (and subsequent fall). /5
Finally, let’s add bitcoin and the bitcoin-sensitive equities. Now the scale goes to 24000. This makes the S&P 500—which has doubled in 14 months—seem like T-Bills. /6
Such are the extraordinary times in which we live. Combine a war-like fiscal/monetary cocktail with meme culture, a technological revolution and a pandemic, and we get a market cycle that none of us will soon forget. /END
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It’s worth asking: what are the attributes that have produced this secular bull market, and how likely are they to reverse? Let’s review.🧵
The most obvious attribute is the concentration risk from the mega growers. While history has shown that the top 10 or 50 stocks can dominate for a very long time, it’s also true that if these stocks go down, so will the major indices. Such is the math of capitalization-weighted indices. I’m not prepared to conclude that the Mag 7 have ended their reign as market leaders, but if they have it seems likely that the market as a whole will produce only modest (if any) beta for some time to come. /2
Related to the Mag 7 concentration story are margins and valuation. The operating margin for the S&P 500 was a mere 5.9% when the secular bull market began out of the ashes of the financial crisis in 2009. It now stands at 12.9%. Higher margins deserve higher valuations, and the 5-year cyclically adjusted P/E ratio has expanded from 9.0x in 2009 to 32.9x at the February 2025 high. /3
We often look to the bond market for clues when it comes to equity risk. Credit analysts focus on balance sheets, and they often sense trouble before the equity folks do.🧵
Today, there is a sense in the market that credit spreads are not confirming the correction in equities (i.e., they are not widening). That suggests that this is merely a “non-recession correction” and not something worse. What can history teach us? /2
Using the same 10% equity correction study I showed earlier, the chart below shows the change in investment grade credit spreads during equity drawdowns. Spreads have widened only 20 bps so far, and from a historically very low starting point (110 bps last month). /3
While I wouldn’t put too much weight on this indicator, the iteration of the Presidential cycle in which the mid-term year (2022) is down, continues to play out nicely. We are now in “year 5” (if that makes any sense), and that year has been down on average for the first six months. It suggests a modest but multi-month corrective period.🧵
Given how few observations there are for this indicator and that we are now three years beyond the mid-term, I would take it with a grain of salt. However, one of the occurrences was the 1966 mid-term, which is interesting because the 1966-1968 soft landing remains a relevant analog to the soft landing of 2022-2024. /2
While circumstances and valuations were different back then, the length and magnitude of that soft landing recovery has been a spitting image of the current cycle, as the next chart illustrates. Both the earnings recovery and the P/E expansion have been similar. The 1966-1968 rally peaked around now, which is something to keep in mind as we ponder the next phase of this cycle. /3
The bullish price action of gold and #bitcoin has sparked a lot of conversation about monetary inflation. In that conversation, the difference between the quantity of money (money supply) and the price of money (price inflation) often gets conflated. Let’s unpack this a little.🧵
It’s true that when the money supply grows faster than GDP, price inflation often follows. Not always, but often, as the chart below shows. /2
But just because M2 grows over time doesn’t mean that the price of stuff is getting debased at the same rate. The chart below shows a near-perfect long-term correlation between nominal GDP and nominal M2, with a slope of 1. Half of that is inflation and the other half is wealth creation, which is what happens when the economy grows. Per the previous chart, going back to 1900 the CAGR of nominal M2 is 6.5% and the real CAGR is 3.6%. /3
At what point do we have a legit bubble on our hands and does this all end in tears? Nobody knows, of course, but in my experience, excessive valuations only play a role after an earnings catalyst has been triggered.🧵
If the trade is crowded (as I’m sure this one is), even the slightest hint that the second or third derivative of estimates starts to falter could cause a shakeout. Based on the chart, we don’t seem to be there yet, but on a price-to-free-cashflow (FCF) basis (below), valuations are getting up there. /2
The FCF yield is now down to 2.8%, which is a far cry from the 12.6% in 2009 and even the 4.8% yield in 2022. Valuations are stretched. /3
How far is too far for the Mag 7? When we consider the market weight of the Mag 7, we see that we are approaching the extremes set by tech/telecom in 2000 and energy/materials in 1980. And that’s for only seven stocks!🧵
Why does it matter what the Mag 7 does? Because they are so big that if they ever go down in absolute terms, the major indices will likely follow, even if the majority of stocks keep going. /2
The chart below shows that the absolute return of mega caps is highly correlated to the overall market (left panel), which means that if the mega caps underperform and also decline in absolute terms, the market will likely not be spared (bottom left quadrant on the right). That’s the nature of concentration risk. /3