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Equities

We’re in the biggest momentum rally since the tech boom

June 24, 2026 - 8 min
Momentum rally - sportsperson in full flight

Global equity markets are in the middle of a momentum surge that is proving irresistible for most investors. For the past two years a simple, yet potent, strategy has dominated: buy what’s already rising and hold on tight. This strategy has delivered impressive absolute returns, beating passive index investors and most active managers alike.

However, what happens when the music stops, or changes? Will investors be allowed to leave in an orderly fashion, or will there be a mad rush for the exits with the laggards left to deal with the mess? History suggests the latter is more likely.

This is the quandary that confronts individual and institutional investors alike. As Bill Nygren, CIO-US and Portfolio Manager at Harris | Oakmark, noted in a recent commentary, “Many of the old Wall Street sayings assume trends eventually have to reverse... But the past few years have made a mockery of that advice, leading millions of investors to conclude that it is outdated and irrelevant.”

The data is stark. As you can see in the chart below, a strategy focused purely on buying US stocks with the strongest trailing nine-month returns outperformed the S&P 500 by 44% over the past two calendar years.

 

Top momentum quintile returns
Chart showing top momentum quintile returns versus S&P 500 Index over the past two calendar years
Data source: Morningstar Direct as of 12/31/2025. The universe for this analysis is all U.S. stocks classified as mid-cap, large-cap, or giant-cap by Morningstar. Momentum is defined for each individual stock as the 9-month trailing return on a 1-month lag. The ‘top momentum quintile’ portfolio is rebalanced quarterly and market-cap weighted. The portfolio is constructed on a quarterly basis by only selecting stocks whose momentum score fall within the top quintile of the universe. In order to avoid hindsight bias, stocks are selected after their 9-month return is realized and are held in the portfolio for 3 months thereafter until the next quarterly rebalance occurs. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Charts are for informational purposes only and do not depict the performance of any Harris | Oakmark strategy or product.

 

A historical echo: magnitude and aberration

The parallels with the late 1990s dot-com bubble are striking, as Bill observes, “The dot-com bubble was easily the strongest two years for momentum, but the past two years are the next highest. And if you add 2023, the past three years cumulatively came very close to the dot-com era.”

Strongest 2-year momentum performances since 1998 (non-annualised)
Source: Harris l Oakmark, Morningstar Direct as of 12/31/2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

 

Value’s deceptive 2026 comeback

The early months of 2026 saw a brief flicker of optimism for value investors. The S&P 500 fell more than 4% in the first quarter of this year, while the Russell 1000 Value rose more than 2%. However, when you look a bit deeper, the reality becomes more nuanced. The gains were not driven by a broad re-rating of fundamentally cheap companies, but rather higher-priced stocks within the value index became more expensive. The underlying trend of investors favouring expensive, momentum-driven growth stocks appears to be continuing.
 

Performance of low vs high PE stocks in the Russell 1000 – Q1 2026
Chart showing performance of low versus high PE stocks in the Russell 1000 in Q1 2026
Source: Harris l Oakmark, Factset. Russell 1000 Value constituents are sorted into quintiles based on NTM P/E ratio, as of 12/31/2025. The average total return is then calculated for each quintile over 12/31/25-03/31/2026. Chart is for informational purposes only and does not depict the performance of any Harris | Oakmark strategy or product.

 

While this made it another frustrating quarter for many value investors, it was also a quarter ripe with opportunity for active investors. Dispersion (the difference between the best and worst performing stocks) was unusually high within both US and global indices, creating prime conditions for stock pickers.

 

Total return dispersion: S&P 500 Index
Chart showing total return dispersion of S&P 500 Index quarterly
Source: FactSet as of 3/31/2026. The P90–P10 spread shown is the difference between the 90th percentile and 10th percentile quarterly total return among S&P 500 Index constituents. Each bar represents one calendar quarter. Constituent-level returns are sourced from FactSet PA3. The historical average is the simple average of the quarterly P90–P10 spread over the full period shown. Chart is for informational purposes only and does not depict the performance of any Harris | Oakmark strategy or product. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

 

Total return dispersion: MSCI World ex USA Index
Chart showing total return dispersion of MSCI World ex USA Index monthly
Source: FactSet, as of 3/31/2026. For each month, constituents with available returns are ranked by monthly total return and grouped into deciles. The P90–P10 spread shown is the difference between the 90th percentile and 10th percentile monthly total return among MSCI World ex USA constituents. Dispersion is calculated as the difference between the average return of the top decile and the bottom decile (equal-weighted). The historical average is the simple average of the quarterly P90–P10 spread over the full period shown. Chart is for informational purposes only and does not depict the performance of any Harris | Oakmark strategy or product. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

 

Portfolio Manager Mike Nicholas, who works alongside Bill Nygren, explains: “When dispersion gets this wide, it allows us to rotate out of names that are near our sell target and reinvest into more attractive opportunities that are trading at deeper discounts to our estimate of intrinsic value…last quarter, given this big dispersion, we added three times our normal amount of stocks, about as high as we could track since the dotcom crash in a single quarter.”

Mike and Bill bought stocks in a range of different sectors, however they were particularly active in the software sector where stocks were sold off heavily, and indiscriminately, on fears of AI disruption. The Harris l Oakmark team believes these fears are overblown in many instances, as analyst Jeremy Thames explains in this recent article. Mike points out that software stocks are trading at their lowest relative P/E ratios since at least 1980, in the early days of software (Microsoft debuted on the Nasdaq in 1986). The international team also increased its weighting to software stocks as they were sold off over the quarter, both adding new positions and buying more of existing stocks at lower prices.

With the continued success of momentum stocks, the underperformance of value, and the portfolio managers’ high trading activity Harris l Oakmark’s US and global equity portfolios are now trading at very low valuations compared to their benchmarks. As of the end of May the Harris Associates U.S. Value Equity Fund was trading at a P/E multiple of 11.5x, while the Harris Associates Global Equity Fund was trading at a P/E multiple of 13.4 times. By contrast the S&P 500 was at 21.3x and the MSCI World Index at 19.5 times.

 

Managing the momentum train

Equity investors face a problem. The momentum juggernaut has not only driven valuations of the most successful companies to new heights, it has meant that many investors’ portfolios are increasingly concentrated in these same names. This is not only true for passive investors in US and global indices, but also for those who have invested their money with active or quantitative managers that give the illusion of active management, while really offering very little difference to their benchmark. However, those managers who are not afraid to be different can offer investors true diversification and the opportunity to diversify risk. Bill Nygren says his strategy’s correlation to the index “is at its lowest level since the dot-com bubble.”

The overwhelming success of momentum strategies tempts investors to abandon their long-term convictions and strategies. Yet the market’s long history of boom and bust, is as a stark reminder of the risks of going ‘all in’ on one strategy. As Bill says: “Maybe ‘this time is different,’ and ‘pigs won’t get slaughtered,’ and ‘trees will grow to the sky.’ But if, as we believe, ‘what goes up still must come down,’ then we are very well-positioned for 2026 and beyond."

Read important disclosures

1 Source: S&P 500, Russell 1000

Source: Harris l Oakmark, S&P 500, MSCI World, as of 31 May, 2026

 

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