We’re not keeping score, but it’s clear that some S&P 500 companies are batting under .500 — and others are in a league of their own. As of Jul. 11, just 100 out of the S&P 500’s 503 component companies have surpassed the index’s year-to-date return of ~19%. Pernas Research’s Deiya Pernas told CNBC, “The S&P 500 has been driven by a narrow range of tech leaders leveraged to AI tailwinds, while the rest of the market has significantly lagged.”
- The disparity is stark: the 50 largest S&P 500 stocks have seen gains of 13% this year, whereas the smallest 50 have experienced a decline of 12% as of Jul. 10. Six key tech giants like Micron and NVIDIA have driven substantial earnings growth.
- Morningstar reports that only 18.2% of active funds and 13.4% of passive funds have outperformed the S&P 500 this half-year, while just 23% of equity ETFs have managed to beat the index over the past year.
Can non-tech keep pace? Although tech stocks are poised to maintain strong growth, other sectors within the S&P 500 are trading at lower price-to-earnings ratios than in March of this year. Additionally, more than half of the companies are likely to report narrower Q2 profit margins than the prior year — even though investor expectations are higher than ever for the upcoming quarter.
Read: The Year Is Halfway Over, But the S&P 500 Has Already Delivered More Than Investors Expected
