Stock market today: S&P 500 drops for fifth day as focus shifts to Powell’s speech
Investing.com -- The S&P 500 continued its upward trajectory last week despite some notable shifts in market leadership, with small caps outperforming large caps, value stocks beating growth stocks, and cyclicals outpacing defensives.
According to Capital Economics, this rotation pattern, while occurring in approximately 13% of weeks since 2000, is more unusual during periods when the overall market rises, happening in only about 5% of weeks.
This marks just the second time this year that all three rotation patterns have coincided with a broader market advance.
Some investors have drawn parallels to the late stages of the dotcom bubble, when similar rotations from large to small caps occurred while the overall market continued rising.
Historical data shows that this combination has frequently preceded market drawdowns in recent years.
However, Capital Economics notes that last week’s outperformance of defensive stocks was largely attributable to an "idiosyncratic boost" to healthcare stocks on Friday.
Prior to that, the MSCI USA Defensive Sectors Index had actually underperformed its cyclical counterpart. Consumer Staples and Utilities ended the week as the worst-performing sectors in the S&P 500.
The outperformance of value and small-cap stocks was concentrated on August 12 and 13, coinciding with a rally in short-dated Treasury yields following the release of July’s U.S. CPI data.
Capital Economics suggests that lower yields typically favor small caps over large caps, as smaller firms tend to be more sensitive to domestic credit conditions.
Despite the similarities to market conditions in 1999, Capital Economics does not view last week’s market action as alarming or particularly surprising.
The firm states it has "yet to see a compelling reason to think a market rotation – or worse, major downturn – lies in store."
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