The Average U.S. Stock Is Catching None of That Megacap Magic

  • The equal-weighted S&P 500 is still down about 20% in 2020
  • Credit risk is the story in both small caps and larger stocks

     

Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
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If you own the biggest American companies, congratulations: you’ve nearly made up your losses. But if you own practically anything else, the wounds are far from healed.

Rarely have lines between the haves and have-nots been more pronounced than in the 2020 stock market, where capitalization-weighted indexes -- ones sorted by size -- are trouncing their egalitarian brethren by some of the widest margins ever. It’s not just a story of small-cap weakness. Even in the realm of big companies, size is telling the whole story.