Surveying the Damage

As is usually the case, most stocks are doing worse than the index. While the S&P 500 is mired in a 15% drawdown (as of yesterday’s close), the median stock is 23.5% below its 52-week high.

Looking within the S&P 500 (as of yesterday’s close, data from YCharts), things have gotten ugly out there. There are more stocks 50% below their 52-week high (21) than stocks within 5% of their 52-week high (18).

40% of S&P 500 stocks (black/gray) remain within 20% of their 52-week highs. The other 60% are in what some would refer to as a bear market.

Not surprisingly, the larger stocks in general are holding up better than the smaller stocks.

In somewhat surprising news the cheapest stocks, at least sorted by P/E, are getting hit the hardest.

Sticking with the S&P 500, the number of new lows has spiked, which happened near previous bottoms (Feb 2016, Aug 2015, Oct 2011).

The washout in percent of stocks above the 200-day shows a similar picture.

The good news is that a lot of damage has already been done.  The bad news is nobody knows how much more damage is still to come.