Lately, a larger number of stocks have driven the U.S. market higher, a sign that if history is an indicator, there would be more advantages.
What remains to be debated, however, is the fluidity of the climb.
Indicators pointing to a stronger and more resilient stock market have been reaching rare milestones recently as the continuation of the bullish race has widened again. Last week, shares ranging from UnitedHealth Group Inc. to L Brands Inc. to Vulcan Materials Co. they reached 52-week highs, adding 184 more people in the S&P 500 who did the same. These gains have helped extend the year-on-year benchmark rise to 11%, with 23 records on the way.
Investors and analysts often look for technical indicators that measure the breadth of the market rally to get clues as to where it is headed next. A market is generally considered healthier when stocks increase together and signs of strong participation are often seen as a signal that a rally has legs. In contrast, a market with poor amplitude, such as that of the late 1990s, near the peak of the dot-com bubble, indicates that there are fewer stocks with higher market capitalizations.
Recently, signs of great amplitude have abounded, an investment of much of last year when a small group of large technology stocks drove much of the market’s gains. Last week, the share of S&P 500 shares that traded above 200-day moving averages crossed 95%, rising to the highest level since October 2009, according to data from Thursday. In just three other periods since the beginning of 2000, this measure has surpassed and then hovered above 95% for several days, according to a Dow Jones market data analysis based on the components of the index. current.