Goldman: Current Market Is More Late Dot Com Bubble Than Crypto Bull Market

By Tony Pasquariello, Goldman head of hedge fund coverage at Goldman Sachs

A very busy week - with a skew towards good news - has come to the following conclusion: NDX +3.5%, S&P +25 bps equal weight S&P -1.25%. After a few weeks of travel and client visits, a few broader themes stick out right now:

1. Winner-take-more: the biggest companies are seemingly getting bigger in most every industry -- witness tech, banking, energy, retail, healthcare, defense, on and on.
2. The importance of distinguishing THE REAL ECONOMY from the anatomy of THE STOCK MARKET remains critical, particularly when (rightly or wrongly) leadership has been this narrow (see chart 11 below).
3. Some very significant dichotomies persist: the bears can point to a slowdown in the US consumer (specific to the micro data set) and an increase in warning signs on the industrial end of things (e.g. trucking/rail/freight) ... Against this, the US macro data set (including the consumer components) is generally holding up well, with no revision to where Q2 GDP (+2.1%) or FY’23 (+1.6%) are tracking.