Much like last year, the equity markets’ story of 2018 was, and still is, the one of FAANGs — high-flying large technology companies.
While the broader markets still have not regained their January highs, finishing the first half of the year with low single-digit returns, glamourous technology stocks soared.
In fact, if it weren’t for technology and some consumer discretionary stocks, the market would be in negative territory.
The S&P 500 SPX, +0.31% six months into 2018, is up less than 2% and all of those gains are thanks to a rally in just two sectors: technology and consumer discretionary.
The S&P 500 information technology sector, in fact, accounted for 102% of the year-to-date gains as of Friday. Meanwhile, Amazon.com, which is in the consumer discretionary sector, has accounted for 34.6% of all the gains. Amazon.com has gained more than 45% since the start of the year.
Both the information technology and consumer discretionary sectors are up nearly 11% year to date, according to FactSet.
The five largest contributors to the year-to-date gains have been: Amazon.com AMZN, +0.82% , Microsoft Corp MSFT, +1.42% , Apple Inc AAPL, +1.12% , Netflix Inc NFLX, +1.72% and Facebook Inc FB, +1.56% . The two stock issues of Google parent Alphabet Inc GOOG, +1.06% GOOGL, +1.14% are among the top 15 highest contributors.
Meanwhile, losses in consumer staples, industrials, materials and financials so far this year subtracted more than 70% from the S&P 500 returns.
“The story of large tech companies, or companies that sell through tech, has been the story since 2013. Investors know these companies have worked in the past and make an assumption they will work in the future,” said Kim Forrest, senior analyst and portfolio manager at Fort Pitt Capital Group.
“But the higher the multiples in these companies, the closer they are to the bubble bursting,” Forrest said.
Technology stocks suffered larger losses during the February correction when the S&P 500 fell more than 10%, but they also managed to rebound to record highs, while the S&P 500 is still about 5% below its peak.
“The poor performance of industrials, consumer staples and financials so far this year suggests that investors believe trade issues will not be resolved, which is a big unknown right now,” Forrest said.
From a global perspective, however, investors view the U.S. economy as coming out a winner no matter what trade agreements are put in place.
On total return basis, the S&P 500 is up 2.2%, while the non-U.S. markets fell 6.7%, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Analysts at Bespoke Investment Group, in a note to investors, said that 2018 was very much a stock pickers’ market.
“Investors have clearly favored stocks with stronger future growth prospects compared to stocks with more attractive current valuations so far in 2018,” Bespoke said.
The S&P 500 Growth index is up nearly 8% year to date, while the Value index is down 1.5%, according to FactSet.
The most notable change is that both implied and realized volatility has been higher in 2018 than in all of last year.
Nearly a third of all trading days in 2018 were 1% or higher. Only 3% of all trading days in 2017 were 1% or higher, according to Bespoke.
So far this year, the average CBOE Volatility Index VIX, -3.05% a measure of implied volatility on the S&P 500, was 16. Last year it was at 11.
“By any measure, volatility has been much higher in 2018 so far than it was in 2017. At the margin this is bearish for equities,” Bespoke report said.
