The Achilles Heel of Capitalism

Taleb makes the point that the achilles heel of capitalism is that if you make corporations compete, it is sometimes the one that is most exposed to the negative Black Swan that will appear to be the most fit for survival.

I have made a similar point previously. Basically, those companies that appear to be "best in breed" are oftentimes those that are the rottenest, ie. they are cooking the books (eg. AIG).

Where Is The End Of Rally Mania Going To Come From?

If momentum is the strategy du jour, then an end of rally blow-out in the large cap space is likely to come from Materials, IT and Consumer Discretionary. But with those sectors already up 32%, 36% and 20% YTD respectively, there is a chance we won't get much more juice out of them, and it'll be left to some of the laggards to equalize this turn. Prime candidates are Industrials, Telecom, Healthcare, and Energy (2.75%, -5.03%, 3.98%, and 1.9% YTD respectively).

What is interesting is that when you drill down into the small and mid cap space, you get slightly different sectoral leaders and laggers. Leading sectors in the mid cap space have been Energy (43%), Consumer Discretionary (36%), IT (35%), and Materials (31%). Laggards have been Telecom (-5.9%), Financials (-0.11%), and Utilities (3.09%). In the small cap space, leading sectors have been Consumer Discretionary (37%), IT (33%), Energy (28%) and Materials (26%). Lagging sectors have been Utilities (-6.17%), Telecom (-40%), and Financials (-12%).

Defensive strategies have been crushed this year, while being leveraged to cyclicals would have knocked the ball out of the park.