One of the phrases which we have done our best to bury over the last few years has been the absolutely idiotic statement [3]"money on the sidelines" (and right behind it "more sellers|buyers than buyers|sellers"). Sadly a group of persistent, if clueless bobble-headed automatons still insist on using it. So be it. Today, however, we will focus on yet another absolutely idiotic phrase: "a stock picker's market." Leaving aside the linguistic stupidity of this expert "assessment" (because nothing says fundamental equity analysis like picking non-stocks), the mere facts flat out refute any suggestion that there is any material, or frankly, any dispersion [4], i.e., the proverbial stockpickeryness. But don't take our word. Here is Goldman's.
From David Kostin:
On the stock selection environment: Contrary to the belief of many market participants, stock return dispersion has been extremely low during the past one and three months, ranking in the 1st percentile versus the past 30 years. Dispersion has been unusually low in Consumer Discretionary and Info Tech. Stock picking is always challenging. Low dispersion means it has been more difficult than usual. Only 42% of core mutual funds is beating benchmarks.
[5]
[6]
So dear clueless pundits: please stop using such idiotic phrases when you have no idea what you are talking about.
Or, on second though, please keep on doing it. That way you make it very easy for the rest of us to weed out who is even more clueless than most when it comes to market punditry.