Reasons to be cheerful?

Mar 4

Both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 closed at fresh record highs on Friday. The Dow ended a tad lower, pulled back by a fall in UnitedHealth which is its major constituent by weighting. Meanwhile, the broad-based, domestically-focused mid-cap index, the Russell 2000, tacked on over 1%, but remains around 15% adrift of its own record highs from back in November 2021. That’s not the only US stock index which has failed to hit a new record this year. The Dow Jones Transportation Index is currently around 7% below its own all-time high, which, like the Russell 2000 (and also the NASDAQ 100, although that old record has been well and truly surpassed) was hit back in November 2021. Does this tell us anything? Perhaps it does. It suggests that there is still a lack of breadth in the rally which, since it began in October last year, has had plenty of time to broaden out. Yet it hasn’t, as investors still lack the confidence to look outside the favoured few. Just look at NVIDIA. It closed out at another record high on Friday, and has added 3% today alone. It is now up over 30% from the low hit just prior to its earnings announcement ten days ago. There will be plenty of traders and analysts who say, ‘Who cares about the Transports and Russell? It’s new technologies which are changing the world, not airlines, trains and small domestically-focused companies.’ We’ll see. In the meantime, the fourth quarter earnings season is drawing to a close with 97% of S&P 500 constituents having now reported. Analysis from FactSet shows that the latest S&P P/E ratios are above both their 5 and 10-year averages, suggesting some overvaluation. Bullish sentiment coupled with FOMO suggests that the path of least resistance is still up. But that sentiment can change quickly and often without warning. This week’s big events include Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday, with Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday.