May was a strong month for big tech stocks, small caps and mid caps. It was such a big month that the Russell 2000 iShares, S&P SmallCap iShares and S&P MidCap SPDR are in the top third of the SCTR table below. Notice that the Russell 2000 Growth iShares is the strongest of all with an SCTR above 90. Large-caps are in the bottom third with SCTRs below 70. Notice that the S&P 500 SPDR and the S&P 100 ETF have SCTRs near 69. This is still ok because the SCTRs range from zero to one hundred. A SCTR of 69 means the ETF is in the top 31% of all ETFs in our universe, which excludes leveraged and inverse ETFs.
Click this image for a live SCTR table.
Relative strength from small-caps and small-cap growth stocks is positive for the market overall. Small-caps have higher betas than large-caps and growth stocks have higher betas than value stocks. Relative strength in small-cap growth stocks reflects a good appetite for risk in the stock market. The second image shows a PerfChart with the performance for eight major index ETFs since April 30th. Notice that IWM is up 2.76% and leading the pack. QQQ is in second place (+2.27%) and handily outperforming SPY, which is up 1.33%.
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You can read more about our StockCharts Technical Rank (SCTR) in this ChartSchool article.
