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Below is a chart included in our weekly Sector Snapshot sent to Bespoke subscribers.  It’s a breadth measure that shows the percentage of stocks in the S&P 500 that are trading above their 50-day moving averages.  As shown, 74% of the S&P’s current members are now above their 50-days.  That’s down slightly from a reading of 77% hit a few days ago, but as you can see, even though the S&P hit new all-time highs recently, this breadth measure didn’t reach a new high along with it.  Even still, 74% is a very healthy reading and not one we’d be concerned about.  If the S&P remains where it is and this measure starts to dip into the 50s and low-60s, it would be a negative divergence suggestive of lower prices.

Below is a look at the percentage of stocks within each sector trading above their 50-day moving averages.  Outside of Telecom (which only has a handful of stocks), the Financial sector currently has the strongest breadth reading at 90%.  Technology — a sector that struggled initially after the election — ranks second at 85%, followed by Materials at 84%.  Health Care breadth has also spiked quite significantly since the start of the year.  One sector that has seen breadth dip recently is Energy.  While Energy ran up right along with Financials in the weeks after the election, we’ve seen the two sectors diverge recently as oil prices have dipped.  Right now 58% of Energy sector stocks are above their 50-days (versus 90% for Financials).

See these breadth charts weekly in our Sector Snapshot report.  Choose either Bespoke Premium or Bespoke Institutional for immediate access.

Each month, Bespoke runs a survey of 1,500 US consumers balanced to census.  In the survey, we cover everything you can think of regarding the economy, personal finances, and consumer spending habits.  We’ve now been running the monthly survey for more than two years, so we have historical trend data that is extremely valuable, and it only gets more valuable as time passes.  All of this data gets packaged into our monthly Bespoke Consumer Pulse Report, which is included as part of our Pulse subscription package that is available for either $39/month or $365/year.  We highly recommend trying out the service, as it includes access to model portfolios and additional consumer reports as well.  If you’re not yet a Pulse member, click here to start a 30-day free trial now!

Continuing with the bullish theme we saw in a breakout month for our Consumer Pulse Report, the positive sentiment has consumers looking to spend on big ticket items.  Of course the increase in income and feelings towards personal finances are a positive for consumer spending, but the intention to buy these big ticket items is also quite telling and a source for optimism.  As you can see from the first chart below, survey respondents that are expecting to purchase a home in the next year jumped more than three points up to 11.1% in December, which is clearly a new high in our survey’s history.

Along with new highs for home purchase expectations, our December Pulse survey also showed a spike in intentions to purchase a vehicle.  One-third of respondents said either “yes” or “maybe” when we asked them if they plan on purchasing or leasing a vehicle in the next six months.  That’s the highest reading we’ve seen in the three years we’ve been running our survey.

To see our full December Pulse report, click here to start a 30-day free trial now!

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Nostalgia was in the air this past Monday since it marked the 10-year anniversary of the iPhone‘s introduction.  If you’d like to re-visit that day when Steve Jobs took the stage in Cupertino, you can view it in full here.  A lot has happened since January 2007.  At that point, President Obama was just a Senator, and the Financial Crisis that would define a generation had begun under the surface but not yet reared its head.  It wasn’t until October of 2007 that global equity markets would peak and begin what would be a 50% drop over the next 18 months.

To mark the 10-year anniversary of the iPhone’s introduction, below is a look at the 40 best performing stocks in the Russell 3,000 (current members) since January 9th, 2007.  Before getting to the list, we wanted to point out that of the 3,000 or so stocks currently in the Russell 3,000, a third of them weren’t even in existence ten years ago!  That fact shows just how much things change over what is seemingly a short period of time.

For the roughly 2,000 stocks in the Russell 3,000 that were around ten years ago, their median change over this time period has been just 53.7%.  Just under 700 stocks in the index (23%) are up more than 100% over the last ten years, while 90 (3%) are up more than 500%.  There have been a total of 23 “ten-baggers,” or stocks that have gained more than 1,000%.

As shown below, Netflix (NFLX) has been the biggest winner over the last ten years with a gain of 3,690%.  On a split-adjusted basis, NFLX was trading at $3.43/share on 1/9/07, and it’s at $129.89 today.  The company had a market cap of roughly $1.6 billion back then, which is up to $55.7 billion today.  Priceline (PCLN) also had a market cap of roughly $1.6 billion back in January 2007, and its market cap is up to $75.8 billion today.  PCLN’s stock price has risen from $44.06 up to $1,525 — a gain of 3,384%.  NFLX and PCLN are the only two index members to gain more than 3,000% over the last ten years.

The other major stock that ranks in the top five is Amazon.com (AMZN).  AMZN has been the fourth biggest gainer in the Russell 3,000 over the last ten years, and it has seen the second biggest jump in market cap.  In percentage terms, AMZN’s stock price has gained 2,007%, and its market cap has risen $362.6 billion from roughly $15 billion up to $378.2 billion.

Given that we’re conducting this exercise because of the 10-year anniversary of the iPhone, you’re probably wondering how Apple’s (AAPL) stock price has performed over this time period.  While Apple doesn’t rank in the top five, it does show up on our list at #35 with a gain of 801%.  In terms of market cap gains, Apple claims the top spot.  Ten years ago, the company’s market cap stood at $79.54 billion.  Apple currently has a market cap of $626 billion — a ten-year gain of more than half a trillion dollars.  Not too shabby.