Who said only corporate earnings are non-GAAP, i.e., excluding - and adding back - all the bad stuff and only focusing on the good? According to the following BMO "analysis" while market breadth has been tumbling in recent months, this indicator which many have focused on to show lack of participation in the most recent rangebound market is actually really great... if only one excludes all the stocks that are destroying the bullish narrative.
To wit, from BMO equity strategist Luigi Di Pede:
U.S. Equity Market Still in Good Shape
Despite a reduction in market breadth, in part due to weakness in energy and interest rate sensitive sectors, the U.S. equity markets remain very healthy (compared to prior peaks) as evidenced by strong sector trends and fund manager positioning.
Equity breadth, which can be characterized as the percent of stocks going up remains strong at 66%. Although the trend has weakened since 2013, equity breadth is still higher than in October 2007 or March 2013. Moreover, unlike prior peaks, the market is showing much broader leadership.
The kicker:
Looking under the hood, excluding Energy and rate sensitive sectors such as Telecom and Utilities, which have been bringing down the average, most sectors continue to show very strong breadth. In particular, Healthcare, Consumer Discretionary and Financial stocks continue to show very strong uptrends.
Coming soon: the double seasonally-adjusted S&P500, which is up every time the plain-vanilla unadjusted (if Fed-rigged) S&P has a down day.
