"Cape Verde. Thank you, on behalf of the world. You made us dream and watch your dreams lived out in real time. We’ll never forget you. What a performance against the world champions."
- Fox analyst Stu Holden ⚽️🇨🇻🎙️
This is incredible:
The "stock market" stopped being one thing on November 30, 2022. Here's what nobody's chart shows: for all of 2022, mega-cap concentration was UNWINDING. The cap-weighted S&P lost ground to equal-weight for 12 straight months (−7%). The market spent a full year rotating away from the giants as rates rose.
Then ChatGPT launched. The ratio V-bottomed within weeks and has compounded +7.5%/yr for three years since — 4x its pre-2022 pace. The Mag 7 against the average stock: +64%/yr.
The detail that kills the "cheap money" explanation: this ignited during the most hostile rate environment in 20 years. The Fed was still hiking until July 2023 and held 5.5% deep into 2024. You can't blame liquidity. A new earnings engine replaced the old one.
And the old one? Since early 2023:
Mag 7 +158%
S&P 500 +78%
Equal-weight +46%
Real consumer spending +8%
The index no longer prices the consumer. It prices a capex arms race. That's why "bad jobs number, stocks rally" is now normal — payrolls matter through the Fed's reaction, not through demand.
• Nov 30, 2022 — ChatGPT launches: the narrative re-rates
• May 24, 2023 — Nvidia guides ~50% above consensus: the narrative becomes earnings
• 2024–2025 — hyperscaler capex raises: the earnings become a GDP-scale investment cycle underwritten by the rate path, not the household.
Data: S&P 500, RSP, Mag 7 via Yahoo Finance. Real PCE via FRED.