While the S&P 500 is up about 1% year-to-date, earnings strength has caused its trailing 12-month P/E ratio to actually contract 1.78 points from 22.37 at the start of the year down to 20.59 as of this writing.

Below we show how trailing 12-month valuations have changed both year-to-date and over the last 12 months.

Year-to-date, every sector with the exception of Consumer Discretionary and Utilities has seen contraction in its P/E ratio.  The Energy sector has seen the biggest contraction, but it also started the year with the second highest valuation.  Along with Energy, there are five other sectors that have seen contraction of 2.5 points or more in their P/E ratios — Materials, Industrials, Consumer Staples, Telecom, and Financials.

The Technology sector is up 10% year-to-date, and even it has seen contraction in its P/E ratio due to earnings strength.  As shown in the table, Tech’s P/E started the year at 23.63, and it’s now down to 22.55.

The one sector that has seen an expansion in its trailing 12-month P/E ratio is Consumer Discretionary, which has jumped 1.62 points YTD from 23.49 up to 25.12.

For more in-depth sector analysis, check out our Sector Snapshot report every Thursday as part of our Bespoke Premium service.  You can join Bespoke Premium today with this 14-day free trial offer.

After a few very weak days for the stock market’s leaders, individual investor sentiment really headed south this week.  According to the weekly sentiment survey from AAII, bullish sentiment dropped more than ten percentage points, falling from 38.7% down to 28.4% in what was the largest one week decline since early March.

As bullish sentiment declined, bearish sentiment surged, rising from 26.2% up to 40.8% in what is only the second week in the last year where bearish sentiment has been above 40%.  More importantly, though, it was the largest one week increase in negative sentiment since January 2016, which also happens to be another time when a plunging Chinese stock market was in the headlines.

Looking to stay on top of what’s going on in financial markets and economic data around the world? Each week, we publish our Global Macro Dashboard, a rundown of 23 different major global economies. We include equity prices, equity valuations and yields, real economic growth, unemployment, retail sales, industrial production, inflation, growth of the money supply, FX rates, and interest rates in one easily digestible packet of charts. Of course, detailed economic or financial analysis often requires deeper dives into the details, but this report is a great way to hit the high notes around the world and look for possible opportunities..

Mexico heads to the polls on Sunday in an enormously consequential election that has implications for asset markets, trade negotiations, and more (for background, our Bespokecast conversation with Horacio Coutino of ETM Analytics has you covered, link). Ahead of that election, Mexico’s stock market has underperformed badly and interest rates have risen significantly. Bond yields have risen and the Banxico has worked to fight the fall in the peso by hiking rates. While the labor market is hot (new cycle lows in unemployment), real GDP growth and industrial production have slowed. Below we show the chart pack for Mexico from this week’s Global Macro Dashboard, which is included with a subscription to Bespoke Institutional.