When You Put It This Way, The Nasdaq Is Doing Great

With the Nasdaq down around 8% from its March 5 high, it may feel like the whole world is just caving in.

The sell-off in the tech heavy index compares to the 3% decline in the S&P 500 during that same period.

But surely most of you are long-term investors, and therefore would prefer some long-term context.

Early today, Crossing Wall Street's Eddy Elfenbein posted a seven-year chart of the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq. It illustrated how the Nasdaq far outperformed the other two indices sharply since the beginning of the bull market in March 2009.

Jonathan Golub of RBC Capital Markets communicates a similar observation in a note to clients today.

It's the ratio of the Nasdaq to the S&P 500 since a year ago. As you can see, the Nasdaq has far outpaced the S&P, and it has just barely begun to close that gap.

Basically, it shows that the Nasdaq investor is still way ahead of the S&P 500 investor in the past year.

Like many on Wall Street, Golub is reluctant to recommend selling unless a more obvious reason becomes apparent.

"While the market is roughly flat for the year, the recent leadership rotation is causing understandable angst for many investors," he wrote. "We remain comfortable with our 2,075 S&P 500 target and cyclical sector bias, including overweights in Financials, Industrials, Discretionary and Health Care. We would be more apt to change this outlook if we saw signs of either fundamental deterioration in the economy or indications that Fed policy was negatively impacting markets. Neither of these conditions are present, in our view."