With large cap U.S. indices hitting record highs on a daily basis, it is becoming easier to spot the areas of the market that aren’t participating. The one that stands out the most in my view is Social Media. A high-growth, high-profile industry that had huge outperformance in 2013, one would expect it to be posting similar gains in 2014.

However, the opposite has been true. Social Media has lagged the broader indices by a considerable margin in 2014 and the Social Media ETF (SOCL) is now down over -13% this year.

The weakness in the space is evident in the table below, with losses on the year in prominent U.S. names such as Twitter (TWTR), Groupon (GRPN), Pandora (P), Yelp (YELP), Google (GOOGL) and LinkedIn (LNKD). On the positive side, the notable outlier in the U.S. has been Facebook (FB), whose shares have risen over 40%.

The question for investors is whether this weakness is merely temporary or perhaps an early indication that share prices and expectations have gotten ahead of fundamentals.

I don’t have an answer to this question but I do believe it’s notable that this high-growth area of the market is exhibiting weakness while more defensive areas, including Utilities and long duration Treasuries, continue to lead.