There has been a fair amount of nervous chatter lately about the state of the stock market. It's true that market leadership is narrow and a handful of tech and artificial intelligence names account for most of this year's gains for the S & P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite — and the indexes' recent runs to all-time highs. But it's also true — at least for now — that this narrow leadership doesn't really matter.
This is a bull market, and it is a world beater. The gains in U.S.
markets surpass many of those in developed and emerging markets around the globe. As of Thursday's close, the S & P 500 was up about 15% in 2024, while the Nasdaq Composite was just shy of 19%. That's a full year's worth of gains in about six months.
Those advances come after the S & P 500's total return topped 26% in 2023. Bubbles of the past vs. today Some observers are drawing comparisons to 1999, when the market surged at the height of the dot-com bubble.
Companies like Microsoft , Cisco Systems and Intel were among the biggest gainers in the S & P 500. To be sure, the most richly valued stocks today account for a greater share of the S & P 500's market value than they did in 1999. It's also true that today's dominant stocks are in better financial shape, and they are growing more quickly than their highly capitalized counterparts of more than two decades ago.
It's also true that market breadth has narrowed beyond just concerns about concentration. Further, the S & P 500 Equal Weighted Index , w.
