As the stock market labored into Friday’s close, CNBC was apparently tying to help with a crawler saying that the S&P 500 was heading for its “best week of the year”. Then again, the gain of just 1% since New Year’s Day is not a whole lot to write home about.
In fact, there were some fireworks in this week’s gains, but if history is any guide they were exactly the kind of action that always precedes a thundering bust. To wit, the market has narrowed down to essentially four explosively rising stocks—the FANG quartet of Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX) and Google (GOOGL)—which are sucking up all the oxygen left in the casino.
At the turn of the year, the FANG stocks had a combined market cap of $740 billion and combined 2014 earnings of $17.5 billion. So a valuation multiple of 42X might not seem outlandish for these race horses, but what has happened since then surely is.
At this week’s close, the FANG stocks were valued at just under $1.2 trillion, meaning they have gained $450 billion of market cap or 60% during the last 11 months—even as their combined earnings for the September LTM period were up by only 13%.
In a word, the gamblers are piling on to the last train out of the station. And that means look out below!
Indeed, the chart of the broad market (S&P 500) should be warning enough. It has been choppin’ to nowhere ever since reaching current levels last November.
^SPX data by YCharts
After 27 failed attempts to rally, this week’s 3% gain was surely just another spasm of the dying bull. That’s especially the case coming as it did on the heels of no positive domestic economic news, the onset of the fifth recession in 7 years in Japan, more cratering of credit in China, another plunge lower in Brazil and much of the DM and the specter of a Thermidorian Reaction to the Paris terrorism events in Europe.
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