LARGE CAPS HOLDING MARKET BACK

Since November 9th, the S&P 500 has essentially traded sideways. We broke the index into deciles (10 groups of 50 stocks) based on market cap and then calculated the average performance of stocks in each decile since 11/9 to see what impact a company's size has had on the market recently. As shown below, the two deciles (100 stocks) of the biggest stocks in the S&P 500 are up just slightly (about 0.20%), while the rest of the deciles have averaged a gain of more than 2%. Clearly the blue chip stocks have been holding the markets back during this sideways trading pattern.