You can see at a glance that the Nasdaq 100 has lagged the other three all year, so far, and is hampered by major resistance. The Dow 30 and Russell 2000 have made a new all-time high and closing high, while the S&P 500 made an all-time closing high today (however, its all-time intraday high of 1576.09 remains unbroken and is still serving as major resistance at a formidable triple-top formation and represents an opportunity for some cannibalization to occur, as I wrote about here.).
The following percentage gained/lost graph shows that, from the beginning of January to today, the Russell 2000 is the leader, followed by the Dow 30, S&P 500, and Nasdaq 100.
The following percentage gained/lost graph of the 9 Major Sectors shows that, for 2013, the market participants have positioned themselves more defensively, as the largest gains have been made in Health Care, Consumer Staples, and Utilities.
Going forward into Q2, Technology will need to pick up the pace and make a convincing argument to attract serious money into all sectors of the equity markets to keep up the bullish sentiment. Otherwise, these markets could be in for a pullback, particularly in view of the financial woes that have surfaced again in Europe. We'll see whether buying gets more aggressive in the other, riskier sectors, now that the psychological closing high has been broken on the SPX; however, the SPX will still need to close and hold above its all-time high...ones to watch (particularly the Financial Sector), as well.
