U.S. companies (other than Amazon) that depend on consumers' discretionary income are at their weakest 'since Lehman'.
As Bloomberg notes, for Doug Ramsey, chief investment officer at Leuthold Group LLC, this makes them cheap enough to be a “contrarian pick." He cited a ratio between two versions of the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Index: one that weighs Amazon and every other stock equally, and the other that accounts for market value and gives about 10 times more weight to the online retailer. As the chary below shows, the ratio fell to the lowest level of U.S. stocks’ eight-year bull market on May 31, and closed near that level Wednesday.
What is also worth noting is the 'break' happened when The Fed stopped QE3...
So what has been driving Amazon higher? Simple - same as what has been driving FANG stocks...
Central Bank balance sheets rule the world... until they don't.