Five Stocks Made Up All Of S&P 500's YTD Return: Goldman

The market is characterized by a narrow breath with only a few stocks driving the majority of the index-level return, and without these stocks, the S&P 500 Index would have been 220 bp lower total return or -2.2% YTD, reports Goldman Sachs. David J. Kostin and team at Goldman Sachs stated in their Nov.13 research note titled: “US Weekly Kickstart” that they anticipate that the S&P 500 will trade at 2075 in 12 months.

Implications of a narrow breadth market

Kostin and colleagues point out an astonishing fact.... five firms -- Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook and GE -- totaling 9% of the equity cap of the index have accounted for over 100% of the S&P 500 YTD return. The...