Market breadth
Bear-side framing first. Breadth has narrowed materially: five mega-caps account for 71% of YTD index return. A cap-weighted index riding on a handful of names is fragile; one built on broad participation is durable. The historical percentile column is the contextual sanity check — an absolute reading without history is decoration.
Signal: narrowingBreadth health
A single 0–100 score blending trend participation, advance/decline momentum and new-high expansion into one verdict on how broad the market really is. The lower the score, the more the index is carried by a narrowing cohort.
How broad is the rally
How many names hold their trend
The share of constituents trading above their 50-day and 200-day moving averages — the cleanest read on whether the advance is broad or carried by a narrow leadership cohort.
% of S&P 500 above moving average
What’s beneath the index
Six participation measures, each with its current reading, month-over-month direction, and ten-year historical percentile. The percentile is the discipline: it stops a single absolute reading from being mistaken for a signal.
| Indicator | Value | Δ MoM | 10y %ile |
|---|---|---|---|
% S&P 500 above 200d MA | 47.0% | ▼ | P28 |
% S&P 500 above 50d MA | 41.0% | ▼ | P22 |
% making new 52-week highs | 4.6% | ▼ | P31 |
NYSE adv/dec line slope (20d) | -0.34 | ▼ | P18 |
Cap-weight − equal-weight YTD return spread | 9.2% | ▲ | P92 |
Top 5 mega-caps share of YTD index return | 71.0% | ▲ | P96 |
What breadth is signalling
The headline number is doing more concealing than describing. The cap-weight minus equal-weight spread sits in the top decile of its history and the top-five share of index return is near a record, while well under half of constituents hold their 50-day average. That combination — a narrow few carrying a wide index — is the defining feature of this tape.
Narrowing breadth is a leading-but-noisy indicator: it leads drawdowns more often than not, but the historical lead time has ranged from six weeks to nine months. Pair this surface with the regime scorecard and the scenarios page — one signal in isolation is not a portfolio decision.
Breadth through the cycle
Percent of the S&P 500 above its 200-day moving average, monthly. The dashed line marks the 50% waterline that separates broad strength from broad weakness — readings below it are the structural-trend warning.
% of S&P 500 above 200-day MA
The rest of the outlook
Breadth is one lens. The outlook reads it alongside regime, valuation dispersion and sector rotation.
Composite risk-on / risk-off read across trend, credit and volatility.
Participation beneath the index — how many names carry the move.
How widely valuations are scattered — and where the cheap pockets sit.
Where relative strength is flowing across the eleven GICS sectors.