The big knock on the 2023 stock rally is that it rests on half-a-dozen companies thriving on hype. That criticism just took a hit.
Beneath another rousing advance this week were signs of an increasingly equitable division of rewards, including the best week for small-caps since March and a trouncing of the S&P 500 by a version of the same index that strips out market-value biases. Industries that had previously trailed — from transports to real estate and energy — this time led the way.
The idea that gains would broaden out after being confined to an oligarchy of artificial-intelligence megacaps has been a prong in bull cases all year, and got a boost this week from a clutch of economic reports that again suggested a recession is still a way’s away. Stocks of all stripes benefited, with nine of ten S&P 500 members climbing. The index’s equal-weighted version beat the traditional one by 1 percentage point for the best week since January.
