Data Update 3 for 2025: The ti... Note

Data Update 3 for 2025: The times they are a'changin'!

The US equity market had a strong year in 2024, but the returns were not evenly distributed across sectors and industries. The technology, communication services, consumer discretionary, and financials sectors delivered returns over 20%, while healthcare, materials, and real estate sectors had returns close to zero. Breaking down the sectors into 93 industries revealed vast differences in performance, with semiconductors and auto & truck being the top performers. The small cap premium, which suggests that small companies deliver higher returns than larger companies, has not held up in recent years. In fact, the data shows that the small cap premium has become a large cap premium, with small cap returns lagging large cap returns by about 4-4.5% in the last 20 years. The market's gains in 2024 were largely driven by the top percentile of companies, with the "Mag Seven" (Apple, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla) accounting for almost the entire market's gain. The concentration of winners at the top is not a new phenomenon, with these seven companies adding $15.8 trillion in market cap over the last decade. The value premium, which suggests that stocks with low price-to-book ratios earn higher returns, has also faded over time, with low price-to-book stocks struggling to deliver in the 21st century. The data suggests that the small cap premium and value premium are not coming back, and investors should not rely on these factors when making investment decisions.