{"id":19176,"date":"2026-01-19T17:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T23:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=19176"},"modified":"2026-01-19T17:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T23:36:09","slug":"its-a-new-year-and-at-least-so-far-a-new-stock-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=19176","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s a New Year, and At Least So Far, a New Stock Market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As an aside, the 10-year Treasury yield jumped late Friday, January 16th, and ended up closing above the 4.20% yield level for the first time in several months. Didn&#8217;t see any specific news on why the yield jumped like that, but the equity indices also faded more than expected late Friday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/MorningstarYTDsectorreturns11626.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-19177\" src=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/MorningstarYTDsectorreturns11626-300x216.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"216\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/MorningstarYTDsectorreturns11626-300x216.png 300w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/MorningstarYTDsectorreturns11626-150x108.png 150w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/MorningstarYTDsectorreturns11626-768x554.png 768w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/MorningstarYTDsectorreturns11626.png 867w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This sector returns post from Morningstar on Saturday, January 17th, shows the start of what could be the long-awaited &#8220;rotation&#8221; for stocks.<\/p>\n<p>Note where the tech sector ranked as of the first two weeks of 2026. <a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=19167\">This blog post<\/a> from this weekend talks about how the tech sector growth rates are still rising and 2025&#8217;s expected tech sector EPS growth of 25% (as of this weekend), is still expected to be exceeded by 2027&#8217;s +31% EPS growth.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe some or a lot of that growth is coming from semi&#8217;s: check this table from WallStEngine last Friday afternoon:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WallStEngine16DaysintoJanuary11626.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-19179\" src=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WallStEngine16DaysintoJanuary11626-300x270.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"270\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WallStEngine16DaysintoJanuary11626-300x270.png 300w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WallStEngine16DaysintoJanuary11626-150x135.png 150w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WallStEngine16DaysintoJanuary11626.png 574w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Those are the respective stock returns, but I&#8217;ll bet the expected EPS growth is supportive of those returns.<\/p>\n<p>Remember, too, in cycles like the late 1990&#8217;s and AI today, the semiconductor sector can generate extraordinary return-on-invested-capital (ROIC) returns, and then generate losses after the cycle has peaked. This blog learned it&#8217;s lesson on Micron Technology (MU) in the late 1990&#8217;s, early 2000&#8217;s. This sector can destroy capital &#8211; like an airline &#8211; for long periods of time.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BespokeIWMbreakout11626.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-19180\" src=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BespokeIWMbreakout11626-290x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"290\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BespokeIWMbreakout11626-290x300.png 290w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BespokeIWMbreakout11626-145x150.png 145w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BespokeIWMbreakout11626-768x794.png 768w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BespokeIWMbreakout11626.png 887w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This chart from Bespoke last week shows the breakout in the Russell 2000 (IWM) which started in late &#8217;25. It&#8217;s already overbought in early &#8217;26.<\/p>\n<p>One last table: equity indices annual returns as of 12\/31\/25:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/annualreturnsequityindices11626.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-19181\" src=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/annualreturnsequityindices11626-300x109.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"109\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/annualreturnsequityindices11626-300x109.png 300w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/annualreturnsequityindices11626-150x54.png 150w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/annualreturnsequityindices11626.png 677w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This spreadsheet gets posted occasionally showing annual returns for the US equity asset classes. Note the 5,10, and 15 year returns for the Russell 2000, the mid-cap 400, the SP 500 equal-weight, and the Nasdaq equal-weight, versus the SP 500 and Nasdaq 5, 10 and 15-year returns.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Summary \/ conclusion:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>If AI stocks like the Mag-10 put up solid numbers for Q4 &#8217;25 and then guide strongly for 2026, the rotation into some of these long-dormant sectors could be stalled. Investors follow returns, at least many retail investors, while many professional investors look for &#8220;non-correlated&#8221; and &#8220;value&#8221; sectors until the growth infatuation stops.<\/p>\n<p>Mid-March, 2000, was a seminal moment: with the SP 500 and the Nasdaq making all-time-highs, the music stopped and the indices didn&#8217;t make new all-time highs for 13 years (the SP 500) and 16 &#8211; 17 years for the Nasdaq.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the issue with riding the longer-term secular bull market: you don&#8217;t know how long it will take the market to recover former highs, i.e. 3 years, 5 years, 10 years ?<\/p>\n<p>Tech earnings start at the end of the month of January. Guidance will matter the most, relative to current expectations. Will be out with previews for readers.<\/p>\n<p>None of this is advice or a recommendation, but only an opinion. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As an aside, the 10-year Treasury yield jumped late Friday, January 16th, and ended up closing above the 4.20% yield&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19183,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19176\/revisions\/19183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}