One of the primary statistics published about the stock markets are the lists of 52 week highs and lows. This shows the number of stocks at their highest, or lowest point of the last year. Last week it was reported on the New York Stock Exchange that 73 stocks hit a 52 week high and 175 hit a new low. This compares to the numbers for the Nasdaq of about the same number of highs, (75) but 257 new lows. Primarily bigger cap stocks trade on the NYSE and technology stocks on the Nasdaq. So does that mean that big cap stocks had a relatively better week?
No, actually they were very similar. There is a distortion in the reporting. The NYSE consists of many different types of securities, not just stocks. It includes ETFs, closed end funds, and preferred stocks. In fact over 1/3 of the gainers reported for the NYSE last week were actually either bonds in the form of some kind of fund, or a preferred, which really is a debt not an equity. Take out the debt securities, and the NYSE and Nasdaq had about equal weeks.
This situation doesn’t always apply. If bonds were down the opposite might be true. But right now with bonds trading near all time highs, it’s leading to distortions in the reporting of highs and lows. Make sure you always understand the story behind the story when looking at financial statistics.