By almost any account, the S&P 500 Index year-to-date performance has been incredibly narrow and concentrated. Just seven companies account for the entire 10% return. The other 493 companies combined are delivering a slightly negative return. Stunning.

The mega-cap stocks at the very top of the S&P 500 Index (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Tesla) that led the 18% decline in 2022 are back in a market leadership position and are accounting for the majority of the market’s 10% gain in the first five months of 2023. Those five companies lost almost 4 trillion dollars of equity market capitalization last year. They were the five biggest losers on that metric last year. Yet, they have increased in value by nearly 2.5 trillion dollars this year. Today, they are five of the seven biggest winners in market cap gained. NVIDIA and Meta are the other two.

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