The U.S. stock market closed up for its 4th week in the last 5 last week. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit all-time highs on Friday and logged weekly gains of +1.0% and +1.5% respectively, which brought year-to-date performance to +8.9% and +17.1%.
Below is a quick look at some essential market internals, including what's helping push the broader U.S. stock indices higher (i.e. corporate earnings) and what's moving most (i.e. high quality, large cap stocks).
A quick Look At The Earnings Scorecard...
There's been a lot of talk in the media about stock valuations being too expensive and Trump trade policy disappointments being the next bear market catalyst but little has been said about the positives.
Here's one big boon for stocks in 2017, first quarter earnings per share growth (year-over-year):
- S&P 500: +15%
- Nasdaq: +18%
- Dow: +14%
What's Moving...
Despite all the media's handwringing about bear market catalysts, since Election Day, broad U.S. stock indices have rallied between 18.5% and 26%.
Breaking down the S&P 500 by style factors reveals some interesting investing trends worth watching. High quality, Large cap stocks continue to outperform:
- Large Cap stocks were up +1.2% last week bringing year-to-date performance to +10.8% (versus 0.5% last week and -0.9% year-to-date for smaller cap counterparts).
- Low Debt/EV (enterprise value) stocks were up +1.4% last week bring year-to-date performance to +12.1% (versus high debt/EV stocks +0.9% last week and +5.3% year-to-date)
