Oil Spike: Which S&P 500 Sectors Were Actually Macro?

Crude ran +40% in six weeks.

We decomposed S&P 500 industry returns over the move into macro and stock-specific drivers.

At the index level it was roughly 50/50. That number tells you almost nothing, because macro's grip varied enormously across the market.

Macro explained 99% of the move in IT Services, 96% in Containers & Packaging, 94% in Construction Materials. Rate- and oil-sensitive cyclicals, trading as pure macro instruments. If you owned them, you were running a macro exposure whether you intended to or not.

At the other extreme, macro explained 0% of Life Sciences Tools, 2% of Consumer Staples, 7% of Broadline Retail. Health Care Technology was the market's biggest gainer at +26%, with around 16 points of that coming from stock-specific drivers.

The same oil shock, the entire story in one part of the market and irrelevant in another.

That distinction is the difference between a macro risk worth hedging and an idiosyncratic move that isn't.

Download the full analysis

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Author
Qi Analytics Team

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