Last week, the market was very selective with only Large-cap Growth in positive territory — think Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), and American Express (NYSE: AXP). All other cap/styles were negative — and the smaller you were, the more you lost. In fact, this entire month the market has beat up on small-caps with its “the smaller you are, the more you lose” bias.
It was an odd week. Economic indicators were mixed, with the usual villain, the initial jobless claims report, disappointing us once again. To be sure, there was much positive news from reporting companies, but revenue growth was again spotty, although better than last quarter. The disappointers include Boeing (NYSE: BA), Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS), Terex (NYSE: TEX), and USG Corp. (NYSE: USG). Seven more banks failed on Friday, and a rather significant player in the commercial real estate field, CapMark, filed for bankruptcy.