Yes, the stock market rally has been very narrow. And yes, since the last stimulus check went out/inflation surged (March 15), inflation has beaten nearly all stocks.
Yes, this is worrisome, and "muddies" the signal of a strong economy.
97% of stocks were >200d MA in mid-April. While the overall SPX climbed and stayed well above its own 200d MA, the pct of stocks above their 200d MA steadily declined.
This is a sign that the rally through most of the year was being led by fewer and fewer stocks.
3/8
The following chart breaks the S&P 500 into ten deciles by mkt cap starting on March 15 (Last stimmy check, inflation takes off).
The 10th decile (largest), provided the best returns over this period. The smallest (decile 1) actually lost money the last 9 1/2 months.
4/8
The 5 largest stocks in green (AAPL, GOOG, MSFT, TSLA, NVDA), the return of the other 495 stocks (brown) and the equal-weighted S&P 500 index (cyan).
Take out the five stocks and the other 495 underperform the index by 550 bps! This is massive!
5/8
Moving beyond the S&P 500, the picture changes dramatically.
The MSCI ACWI ex-US (purple), the Midcap Index (green), and the Russell 2000 Small-Cap Index (brown) all failed to match the rise of inflation since March 15, with the Russell 2000 losing money over this period.
6/8
Since March 15, the RTY underperformed the SPX by 24.95% (top panel). This is the 2nd worst 210-day period since the index’s inception in 1978.
Only the underperformance in late 1998, following the sharp sell-off in stocks around the failure of LTCM, was larger.
7/8
These charts show a stk mkt driven by a handful of the largest stocks.
The smallest SPX, midcap, small-cap, and the world ex-US all failed to beat inflation.
Many say stocks are a good inflation hedge. This year, that has only been the case for a small number of stocks.
8/8
Others proclaim the big rally in stocks signals a strong economy. However, the most economically sensitive of the indices, the smallcap Russell 2000, has lost money in the last 9 1/2 months (since stimmy checks).
When viewed this way, the market’s message gets very muddied.
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Energy stocks experienced their best year on record. The S&P Energy Index returned 54.64%, more than doubling the returns of all but the financials and info tech sectors.
3/4
Whether calculating returns in U.S. dollars or local currency, U.S. equities topped almost all other developed countries in 2021. In dollar currency terms, the MSCI U.S. Index outpaced the MSCI World Ex-U.S. Index by almost 14% last year.
Not the "wealthy" working from home chortling on twitter about their stock portfolio rocketing higher.
It was the "poor," the 40% of the country that rents and has less than $1,000 in savings, that was devastated by this policy.
3/4
Meanwhile, in other news, economists still cannot figure out why consumer confidence is at a 10-year low, and still worse than the April 2020 lockdown readings.
But traders and strategists say that some hedge funds are wagering that the yield curve will not flatten much more. ... Kavi Gupta, Bank of America’s co-head of rates trading, said that funds were indeed “still in steepeners”
3/5
A reminder of how the steepening trade has worked out for hedge funds so far
On Monday the number of COVID cases in the U.S. spiked as labs reopened after the holiday. While this is more a technical spike due to labs catching up from previous days, the seven-day moving average is on the verge of making a new high.
2/7
We have argued policy is a reaction function of rising cases. During this wave, imposed restrictions would mostly result in lost workdays as millions are following government guidelines and isolating.
This chart shows 2.04M tested positive in the past 10-days. If we assume 75% are in the workforce (few under 18 test positive), then 1.04% of the workforce is currently “out” with a positive test.
So, the effective unemployment rate just spiked 1.04% in the last 10-days.