The gap between big tech and the rest of the market just vanished. Here's what it means for investors.

By Barbara Kollmeyer

Goldman Sachs says opportunities have opened up as tech stock valuations have retreated

Some highflying technology stocks have been punished by investors. Goldman Sachs says now may be the time to start reconsidering exposure.

It's been a summer of discontent for the momentum trade, which has mostly been hot artificial-intelligence-themed stocks that investors chased higher and could not get enough of, until they did.

Our call of the day from Goldman Sachs strategists, led by Peter Oppenheimer, says the beatdown for those hot stocks has likely created an opportunity for investors.

Oppenheimer and his colleagues pointed to the derating of dominant technology companies, whose lower price-to-earnings ratios have been driven by anxiety over the returns that capital expenditure might yield in the future. Their chart shows the biggest five stocks in the U.S. now have a price-to-earnings ratio that's just marginally higher than the other 495 stocks, eliminating the premium they have consistently enjoyed since 2017.

"It also marks a very big change from the dot-com era. Back then, valuations reached a much greater high, but they came down as stock prices collapsed," said Oppenheimer and his team. "This time, prices have adjusted more modestly, but earnings have remained exceptionally strong."

That sector's P/E premium, on a global basis, has dropped to 20% from nearly 200% at the start of the century. That's as tech leadership has been taken over by hardware - chip stocks, mostly - that have seen earnings growth driven by huge AI demand.

"Nonetheless, the cyclicality of these businesses - and the risk that their earnings are not sustainable - has driven them to derate too," they noted. And while valuations for those chip names have moderated, implied future growth keeps rising, remaining well below dot-com peaks.

The strategists also pointed out that investor rotation into other sectors has lifted growth prospects and valuations of many "old economy" industries, long shoved aside by investors. Industrials XLI now has the highest sector valuation, above its 20-year range, while technology XLK is now in line with its 20-year average. In fact, consumer staples, discretionary and healthcare are all more highly valued than information technology or communication services, they said.

"The hit to the biggest stocks and the largest sector in the U.S. (despite strong earnings) has led to a lower P/E ratio, despite the U.S. remaining by far the most attractive from an ROE [return on equity] perspective," they said. Only China has a return on equity below its historical average, but with much lower profitability and returns.

"This lower rating gives investors an opportunity to re-engage with the U.S. equity market while being selectively diversified across regions," said Goldman.

A separate note from a team led by Goldman's chief U.S. equity strategist Ben Snider indicated that for investors in momentum stocks, history is also on their side. "The sharpest momentum rallies in recent decades have usually been followed by periods of consolidation similar to the recent drawdown," he wrote in a note on Friday, providing this chart:

Both "the historical pattern and the sharp deleveraging that has recently taken place among hedge funds and ETF investors suggest rotational volatility should diminish in coming weeks," the strategists said.

The markets

U.S. stocks DJIA SPX COMP have opened higher and Treasury yields BX:TMUBMUSD10Y BX:TMUBMUSD30Y are lower.

 
Key asset performance                                                Last       5d      1m      YTD     1y 
S&P 500                                                              7489.72    1.05%   0.09%   9.41%   20.07% 
Nasdaq composite                                                     25,373.85  1.59%   -1.78%  9.17%   22.88% 
10-year Treasury                                                     4.689      3.10    21.50   51.70   49.20 
Gold                                                                 4106.3     0.68%   -1.68%  -5.21%  19.77% 
Oil                                                                  79.62      -2.80%  16.06%  38.69%  20.20% 
Data: MarketWatch. Treasury yields change expressed in basis points 

The buzz

Brent oil (BRN00) is down nearly 6% and West Texas Intermediate crude (CL.1) is sliding nearly 7% after President Donald Trump backed down from attacks on Iran and said talks with the country would begin on Monday, as Iran denied that talks were taking place.

AstraZeneca (AZN) stock slumped, while Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) shares rose on reports of early-stage deal talks.

Alibaba stock (BABA) is higher after the China tech group unveiled a large, ultra-cheap AI model.

Palantir Technologies (PLTR), the once highflying AI stock, reports after the close.

The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing survey for July is due at 10 a.m., along with construction spending.

'Little Warren Buffetts': Chinese parents pay top dollar to send kids to financial literacy camps.

The chart

A more diversified portfolio of stocks than normal is making the most sense right now, according to Adam Parker, CEO and founder of Trivariate Research. His firm analyzed the performance of portfolios with 25 stocks, versus those with 50, 75 and 100 stocks since 2000, as shown in the chart. "We found that even if you are a good stock picker, running more concentrated (25 stocks) made sense from 1999-2018, but has been much more volatile and less successful than running 50 or 75 stock portfolio since 2019," he told clients.

Top tickers

These were the top-searched tickers on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m.:

 
Ticker  Security name 
NVDA    Nvidia 
MU      Micron 
TSLA    Tesla 
SPCX    SpaceX 
MSFT    Microsoft 
TSM     Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing 
AAPL    Apple 
AMD     Advanced Micro Devices 
META    Meta 
SNDK    Sandisk 

-Barbara Kollmeyer

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

08-03-26 0944ET