It is hard to believe that housing-related indicators could continue to impress, but the NAHB’s reading on homebuilder sentiment released this morning did just that.  The headline reading was expected to hold steady at what was a record high of 85. Instead, the index set the record high bar even higher as it rose 5 points to 90.

Not only does the index sit at an all-time high, but the 5-point move this month was in the top 10% of all month over month changes.  The same can be said for the index for Present Sales as well as sentiment in the Midwest and the South. Overall, just about every sub-index of the report was higher this month and rising to new record highs. The Northeast was the only holdout as that index fell 5 points, but at 82 it is still at its second-highest level ever.  With more records this month, every index has made a new record in at least two of the last three months. The headline index, Present Sales, and Future Sales have done so in back to back to back months.

As previously mentioned, there has been strength in homebuilder sentiment across the country regardless of region.  Even though the Northeast declined 5 points (a historically large month over month decline around the bottom 5% of MoM changes), it still sits well above anything observed throughout the history of the data.  The same can be said for the Midwest, West, and South.

Even though homebuilder sentiment is strong, sentiment for the industry’s stocks has waned. The S&P 1500 Homebuilders group last put in a high roughly one month ago. In the days since then, it has been consolidating between support at the early September lows and its sideways trending 50-DMA.  From a technical perspective, homebuilder stocks are at a bit of a crossroads as the price action of the past few months has set up what’s looking like a head and shoulders pattern. On the bright side, last week’s bounce that has carried into this week has not confirmed the completion of that pattern. But conversely, even with the catalyst of homebuilder sentiment today, the index has not been able to make a significant push back above its 50-DMA. When stocks stop rising on good news, it warrants attention. Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options for our best research available.

With equities having another strong day yesterday, a large number of stocks closed above their 200-DMAs. For the S&P 500 as a whole, nearly 90% of the index closed above their long term moving averages.  That was the highest percentage for the broad index since July 3rd, 2014.  As equities pullback today, that reading is lower at 86.56% as of this writing which is still in the 90th percentile of readings since 1990.

As shown in the charts below, the same applies on a sector by sector basis as well.  Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Financials, Industrials, and Materials all currently boast readings above 90%. For Consumer Discretionary, there have been a few similarly high readings since the start of the month, and these have all been the highest on record since at least 1990.  For other sectors, recent readings have similarly been at multi-year highs.  Levels for Communication Services, Health Care, and Materials, are all their highest since September or late August, but for others, it has been much longer since we saw similar readings. For example, the last time Industrials saw as high of a percentage of stocks above their 200-DMA was way back in May of 2013, and for Consumer Staples, the last higher reading was in October of 2013. The sector that has the weakest number of stocks above their 200-DMAs is unsurprisingly Energy.  Whereas yesterday exactly half of the stocks in the Energy sector finished above their 200-DMA, today less than a third remain above that level. Granted, that is far better than the end of October when not even 5% were above.

In the table below, we show a list of the S&P 500 Energy sector’s components showing how far each is above/below their 200-day moving average as well as the MTD and YTD performance.  Baker Hughes (BKR), Halliburton (HAL), and Marathon (MPC) are all the most elevated, currently above their 200-DMAs by double-digit percentages.  TechnipFMC (FTI) and National Oilwell Varco (NOV) have been the top performers in the sector, but they both still sit a few percentage points below their 50-DMAs even after rallies of more than 40% this month. The only Energy sector stock to have fallen in what has been a remarkably strong month is Cabot Oil and Gas (COG), though it is one of the best performers YTD with a decline of just 2.4%. Still, its recent decline leaves it as one of the furthest below its 200-DMA.  Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options for our best research available.

Just when you think you’ve seen it all from this market, a month like November comes around.  Stock returns so far this month have been extraordinary, and what makes the gains even more impressive is the fact that they came not from a starting point of a depressed bear-market environment but instead from a level that was already pretty close to record highs. Within the Russell 3000, which encompasses stocks with market caps of all sizes, the average MTD performance of stocks in the index is a gain of over 15%.  Even in the large-cap S&P 500, the average stock in the index has rallied more than 13.5% so far this month!  Keep in mind too that these are just averages, and plenty of individual stocks are up multiples of that.

In the Russell 3000, there are 51 stocks that are up over 50% so far in November.  We don’t have enough room to list them all, but the first table below shows the twenty top performers.  Topping the list is Five Prime Therapeutics (FPRX), which has rallied more than 349% this month!  That’s years worth of returns in sixteen days.  Behind FPRX, there are two other stocks – Cooper Standard (CPS) and Revlon (REV) – which have both more than doubled. Many of the names listed below are unknown small caps, but a handful of names like Transocean (RIG), Coty (COTY), and Lyft (LYFT) are very well known.

In the large-cap S&P 500, the gains haven’t been as gaudy but are still impressive.  As shown in the table below, the twenty top-performing stocks in the index are all up over 30% MTD.  One sector well represented on this list is Energy with eight of the twenty names listed coming from that sector.

While just about every stock in the S&P 500 is up this month, 18 stocks have managed to trade lower. Of these 18 stocks, only two – Hanesbrands (HBI) and NortonLifeLock (NLOK) – are down more than 5%.  What’s really interesting about this list, however, is that while Energy dominates the list of S&P 500 winners, no sector dominates the list of losers as it’s a diverse set of stocks spanning ten of the eleven GICS sectors.  The only sector not represented is Industrials.  Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options for our best research available.

After back-to-back weekly gains of more than 6%, the small-cap Russell 2000 has kept the momentum going to start the week as it is already up over 2% today. The fact that the index was up more than 5% in back to back weeks was pretty incredible enough; going back to the index’s start in the 1970s, it has only happened seven other times with the last occurrence coming all the way back in 2009. In fact, it not only happened once in 2009, but in three separate months (April, June, and July)!

The big gains in the Russell 2000 over the last two weeks has also helped the Russell 2000 to widen its lead in terms of market cap compared to Apple (AAPL).  With a market cap of just over $2.5 trillion, the Russell 2000’s market cap is now close to $500 billion more than AAPL’s market cap.

Back on September 1st, AAPL’s market cap actually topped the entire market cap of the Russell 2000 for the first time in history.  The honeymoon for AAPL didn’t last long, though.  The next day the iPhone maker’s market cap dipped back below the Russell 2000’s and hasn’t topped it again since.  Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options for our best research available.