The S&P 500 recently sat just 2.5% below its all-time high. Look past the index, though, and the picture gets uglier. Roughly 40% of its members were trading below their 50-day moving averages, and about 1 in 3 had already slipped into a bear market.
That split explains why so many portfolios lag in what looks like a strong market. Gains have pooled in a handful of mega-caps such as NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN). Many of the high-growth names investors loved a year ago sit 20% to 30% below their highs, or worse.
