Capitalization and Bullishness

An unusual aspect of the post-2/27 rebound in the markets has been the ascendancy of large cap stocks over smaller capitalization ones. While there have been many periods in which large caps have outperformed small caps, in our current 4 ½ year bull market, this has never coincided with a dramatic up leg in the S&P 500, as the ratio chart for the Russell 2000 and the S&P 100 demonstrates below (click for a larger image):

If you turn back the clock to the 1990s, however, you discover that there is an important precedent for large cap outperformance leading the broader markets up. Specifically, the period of 1995-1999 saw the OEX dramatically outperform the RUT in relative terms, dragging the broader markets through a bull run that none of us will ever forget.

The 1995-1999 period is also a very interesting one from a VIX perspective (yes, it’s always about the VIX, isn’t it?) because it coincides with the one long-term bull market in which volatility and stocks moved up hand in hand, as I discussed at some length two weeks ago in “The SPX and the VIX Revisited.” (Incidentally, given the strong response to that post, I have moved it to the select “Archive Highlights” section in the right hand column of the blog.)

With every ‘discovery’ comes more questions and the question this observation has raised for me is the relationship between volatility and the relative performance of different capitalization groups. Stay tuned…

“Let’s see if you bastards can do 90!”

About a month ago, I remarked on some comments from Doug Kass about how the markets looked a lot like 1994, which was a decidedly down year for equities. Now Bernie Schaeffer tells us that the WABAC machine (not to be confused with the highly entertaining internet archives ‘wayback machine’) should actually be set to 1995, not 1994.

The difference, of course, is substantial. In 1995, we saw the beginning of a glorious bull run that lasted through until early 2000. Those who loaded up on long positions in 1994 probably had a substantial hole to dig out of before they could enjoy the fruits of the 1995 bull – if they didn’t give up entirely in the interim.

In “Market Parallels with 1995,” Schaeffer makes the case for parallels with the beginning of the 1995 bull as follows:

“Joseph Keating, chief investment strategist at First American Asset Management, recently pointed out in an article that the SPX's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio fell to 17 as of the third quarter of 2006 - lowest since mid-1995. Meanwhile, the SPX has now gone 221 days without a two-percent correction. This compares to the 223-day streak experienced in 1995.

Furthermore, we find the market in another in a low-volatility environment, as the CBOE Market Volatility Index (VXO) currently hovers around levels similar to those we saw in 1995. “

Personally, I think it looks more like 2017 than anything else. If forced to choose to match my outlook with one year over the other, I’d pick 1994 over 1995, but what do I know, I’m just living in my own little VIX-centric universe…