Today’s advance is more widespread. An average of 381 S&P 500 stocks have increased during each of the last five years, compared with 311 in the 1990s, data compiled by Bloomberg show. All but 40 companies were up in 2013, the most in at least two decades. At the record last week, 77 stocks hit a 52-week high, compared with 27 at the market’s peak in 2000.

The S&P 500 Equal Weight Index, which strips out biases related to market value, has added more than 29 percent a year in the current run. That’s almost twice as much as in the last half of the Internet bubble, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Technology Surge

As a result, the gap between the market’s leaders and laggards is smaller. During the stretch that lasted from March 1995 to March 2000, computer and software makers surged 754 percent, compared with 200 percent in the next-best industry, banks. By contrast, since March 2009, consumer-discretionary shares have jumped 324 percent, banks are up 259 percent, and industrial companies have risen 243 percent. The group with the smallest increase, phone companies, is up 68 percent.

“Confidence drives the bull,” James Paulsen, the Minneapolis-based chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, said by phone on March 5. His firm oversees about $360 billion. “Most people started this recovery with absolutely no confidence in the future. What we see is a return to health.”

Eighteen companies in the S&P 500 have advanced more than 1,000 percent since 2009. Among the top five, none is a technology maker. General Growth Properties Inc., a real estate investment trust, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., producer of eye drug Eylea, hotel franchiser Wyndham Worldwide Corp., CBS Corp. and insurer Genworth Financial Inc. all generated bigger returns than the next best performer, Priceline.com Inc.

Cisco, Qualcomm

During the 60 months through March 2000, 12 stocks increased by that much or more and all except four were related to technology. Cisco Systems Inc., the world’s biggest maker of network routers and switches, and Qualcomm Inc., a manufacturer of mobile-phone chips, soared more than 3,500 percent.

Internet and computer shares attracted close to every investor dollar that was sent to specific industries back then. Mutual funds and ETFs tracking technology companies absorbed $71 billion in 1999 and 2000, or 85 percent of the total that went to sector-focused funds, data compiled by Morningstar show.

“It was neighborhood parties, everybody talking about dot- com stocks they own,” David Chalupnik, the head of equities at Nuveen Asset Management in Minneapolis, said in a March 5 phone interview. His firm manages about $115 billion. “Today, sentiment is improving, but the market overall still is not front-and-center with people.”