(Bloomberg) -- Spring has sprung for tech stocks.
The Nasdaq Composite Index rallied to a fresh record Friday, capping an 11 percent gain since its Feb. 8 low as investors poured back into the nine-year old bull market's biggest winners. Indexes for every other corner of the market, from mega-caps to small-caps to the S&P 500 have yet to reclaim the same milestone.
It's a return to form for the tech titans - from Apple Inc. to Amazon.com Inc. -- that briefly lost their luster as the market convulsed in February. Investors poured almost $616 million into the biggest exchange-traded fund tracking the industry on Thursday, the most since December 2011. The Nasdaq sank 5.1 percent in the week ended Feb. 9, the most since early 2016.
“In an environment where the market seems to be favoring growth, that's where investors can go to get growth," said Gary Bradshaw, a portfolio manager at Hodges Capital Management in Dallas. “In an economy that's strong, it seems like tech stocks are growing even faster than the economy. It was a great place to be last year and so far early this year it's still a good place to be."
Tech earnings are forecast to rise 31 percent in 2018, the second-most among 11 S&P 500 industries after energy. The shares underpinned one of Wall Street's most successful strategies in 2017 -- simply sticking with winners -- as momentum outpaced just about everything else.
The S&P 500 remains 3.2 percent below its all-time high, while the Dow average sits 5 percent off its record.
--With assistance from Carolina Wilson
To contact the reporters on this story: Sarah McDonald in Singapore at smcdonald23@bloomberg.net, Sarah Ponczek in New York at sponczek2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah McDonald at smcdonald23@bloomberg.net, Jeremy Herron, Brendan Walsh
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
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