BofA Securities’ Australia-based quantitative strategist Nigel Tupper published a deep look into the history of market concentration and uncovered some remarkable facts. Most importantly, equity market dependence on a few megacap stocks is nothing new, and only 54 stocks out of approximately 3,000 accounted for half of all global equity market gains over the past 20 years
Mr. Tupper noted that in current narrow market conditions, “a view on the stocks arguably becomes more important than country, sector, or style allocation.” Active managers have even more trouble than usual keeping up with their benchmarks because to do so means fund portfolios must become just as concentrated, which takes away from risk management.