Weekly Performance Recap (04-17-2020)

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Every weekend we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

As this is something we do internally on a daily basis, we believe sharing it with clients will add value and help them better understand our top-down approach. We use these tables to provide insight into both relative strength and market internals.

This week we want to highlight our US Equity Index and Industry tables as they illustrate an important resumption in leadership from the market's most resilient areas.

Click on table to enlarge view.

After some mean reversion last week, the trend in Nasdaq outperformance and small-cap underperformance reasserted itself this week as the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) was up 7% compared with an average 1% gain for the rest of the major US Indexes.

The Nasdaq's strength through the recent volatility is also illustrated by its 3-month return of just -4% which stands out relative to the rest of the indexes, particularly small and micro-caps which are both down almost 30% over the same period.

Read this week's posts about why we like the Russell 2000 (IWM) on the short side and why we like more than just the Nasdaq Index, but the company (NDAQ) itself on the long side.

Banks (KBE) took it on the chin this week as investors reacted to the earnings results from large money-center banks such as JP Morgan (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC).

On the other hand, we saw a bounce back from some of the leaders in Healthcare and Technology with Biotech (IBB), Software (IGV) and Semiconductors (SOXX) leading the charge among our Industry ETFs.