As we noted in today’s Morning Lineup, sector performance has heavily favored areas like Tech, Consumer Discretionary, and Communication Services in recent weeks. Playing into that sector-level performance has been the strength of the mega-caps. The NYSE FANG+ index tracks ten of the largest and most highly traded Tech and Tech-adjacent names. In the past several days, that cohort of stocks is breaking out to the highest level since last April whereas the S&P 500 still needs to rally 4% to reach its February high.

Although FANG+ stocks have been strong recently, that follows more than a full year of underperformance. As shown below, relative to the S&P 500, mega-cap Tech consistently underperformed from February 2021 through this past fall. In the past few days, the massive outperformance has resulted in a breakout of the downtrend for the ratio of FANG+ to the S&P 500.

More impressive is how rapid of a move it has been for that ratio to break out. Below, we show the 2-month percent change in the ratio above. As of the high at yesterday’s close, the ratio had risen 22.5% over the prior two months. That comes up just short of the record (22.6%) leading up to the pre-COVID high in February 2020. In other words, mega-cap Tech has experienced near-record outperformance relative to the broader market. However, we would note that this is in the wake of last year when the group had seen some of its worst two-month underperformance on record with the worst readings being in March, May, and November.   

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