“We’re not in a horrible spot,” said James Masserio, co-head of equities for the Americas at Société Générale. “There are recession risks for sure, but we have to see how those materialize over several months and into next year. So technically this is a bull market.”
Still, a rise of 20 percent from a low is, mathematically, less substantial than a fall of 20 percent from a high. Other investors prefer an assessment that involves a wider look at investor sentiment, economic growth and the market’s direction.
“If a stock goes from $10 to $5 and then rallies to $6, it’s not in a new bull market,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Financial Group. “Defining a bull or bear market, however it’s done, should be done via a broad look at the market.”
The recent rally in the S&P 500 has been led by a small group of tech stocks propelled by enthusiasm about the profit-generating possibilities of artificial intelligence, especially for those at the heart of its development and the production of hardware needed to power it. Nvidia, the chip maker, has come to symbolize this newfound enthusiasm for A.I. because its semiconductors are used in the technology. The company has rallied almost 170 percent this year — gains that have brought its valuation close to $1 trillion.
The average individual stock in the S&P 500 has risen less than 3 percent this year, market data through Friday’s close shows, compared to a gain of almost 12 percent for the index as a whole. Some 90 percent of the index’s rise is because of bumper gains for just seven of the biggest companies: Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla and Alphabet, the parent company of Google.
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