For most of 2023, the stock market’s gains had been all about seven companies. That is starting to change. Market breadth, or the measure of advancers against losers, had been negative heading into June as most of this year’s rally was due to just seven companies. But the June bull run has seen much more widespread growth, with 425 of the stocks listed in the S & P 500 showing positive returns against just 78 losers, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S & P Dow Jones Indices. Prior to June, the index’s positive performance was completely due to the performance of just seven companies: Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla and Alphabet, counting both the Google parent’s Class A and C shares. But that has broadened out in June. “The S & P 500 total return YTD is 11.98%, but you now need the top 20 to turn the index negative (-0.07%), compared to 8 at month-end May (-0.29%),” Silverblatt wrote. That list of 20 now includes companies such as Broadcom, Advanced Micro Devices and Salesforce, and non-tech names such as General Electric, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (Class B shares) and Visa. On a year-to-date basis, there are now 269 stocks that are positive compared to 233 down. Of that group, some 150 are higher by at least 10% and another 70 have gained at least 20%. On the downside, 108 stocks are off at least 10% and 32 have fallen at least 20%.
