If You Think The S&P 500 Has Had An Impressive Rally, Then Check This Out...

You probably know that stocks are on a major tear.

But if you're just watching the S&P 500, you're missing the real party.

BTIG's Dan Greenhaus -- in last night's Bedtime With BTIG note -- puts the market gains into some nice perspective. Note the comment in bold.

Seven weeks in a row the S&P 500 traded higher although with no single day closing up or down more than 2.5 points, it certainly wasn’t a rousing move to the upside. More impressive though are small caps; the Russell 2000 isn’t just up all seven weeks this year, its higher in twelve of the last thirteen weeks. For the large caps, the past two weeks has certainly seen a slowing of gains; the index is up less than 0.5% over that period. For every GE (NBC universal deal and buyback), GOOG (core business doing fine) and CMCSA (up 6.5% this week after reporting), there’s a CTL (cut dividend, weighing on whole telecom space), MHP (credit rating cut) and MRK (Venezuela, Vytorin). The result is the lack of movement and complete reversal of the VIX spike from Monday the 4th.

Here's a chart since november comparing the S&P 500 (red line) vs. the Wilshire Small Cap Index (blue line), which is a close approximation of the Russell 2000. Both are doing well, but as you can see, small caps are just killing it.