Market Celebrates 9-Year Bull Run: Best Sectors & Their Top Stocks
Zacks Investment Research | Mar 08, 2018 08:55PM ET
Even a flurry of economic and political headwinds have not been able to stop the bulls, which have turned nine today. It represents the second largest bull-run in history after the 1990s rally that ended when the tech bubble burst in 2000.
This is especially true as the U.S. economy has come a long way in emerging from the ills of the financial crisis and the Great Recession driven by robust job gains, growing wages, slowly rising inflation, increasing consumer spending, recovering housing market and record level of consumer confidence.
Additionally, strong corporate earnings, pick-up in economic activities across the globe, and optimism surrounding Trump’s pro-growth policies have been the biggest catalyst for the stocks in the recent year. A rebound is oil price is also adding to the strength.
While all the three major indices — S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq — more than tripled, Nasdaq has been the largest winner of the nine-year bull run, gaining about 487% since hitting a low of 1,265.52 on Mar 9, 2009. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones gained 305% and 280%, respectively.
The impressive surge came despite the latest market turmoil that had pushed the indices into a correction territory (a decline of more than 10% from their last peak reached in late January) on Feb 8 and wiped out about $2.5 trillion from the S&P 500 market value. However, this is not the worst nightmare in the recent history. The most dreadful situation was the scary start seen in 2016 when the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq recorded their worst New Year’s Day in 15 years and Dow Jones saw the worst start since 2008. The chaos sent the major bourses into a bear territory on Feb 11, 2016 with a drop of more than 20% from the last peak.
Government shutdown, debt crisis, the Middle East conflict, China turmoil, recession in Japan, geopolitical tensions, the oil price carnage, political turmoil in Greece, Brexit and Trump’s anti-trade and protectionist policies kept crossing paths with the bulls during this period of time.
Winners
While almost all the sectors have flourished in the Bull Market, aerospace and consumer discretionary led the way per Zacks, generating returns of about 464% and 414%, respectively. This was followed by gains of 357% for retail and 355% for business services. All the four sectors have a solid placement with Zacks rank in the top 10% ).
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