A recovery in crude oil prices after a 60 percent plunge has underpinned a recovery in energy stocks, which have gained 7.1 percent over the past 10 weeks.

To money managers like Gene Peroni of Advisors Asset Management Inc., the confluence of S&P 500 valuations is an opportunity. Rather than an impediment that thwarts stock picking, it’s a sign that growth pervades the economy.

‘Rewarding Stage’

“Higher P/E stocks don’t frighten me, necessarily, given what stage we’re at in the market cycle,” Peroni, a fund manager at Advisors Asset Management in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, said by phone. His firm oversees $14.7 billion. “This tends to be the most exciting and rewarding stage of the market anyway.”

The Russell 1000 Growth Index, made up of companies with the highest price-to-book ratios and forecast earnings growth, is trading close to its highest level in 14 years relative to its value-focused counterpart. The growth gauge rose to 0.99 times the Russell 1000 Value Index on April 27, the highest since 2001.

At the same time, profit growth shows signs of slowing after a five-year expansion. Overall S&P 500 earnings will fall 6.4 percent in the second quarter and 2.6 percent in the third, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Enthusiastic Market

Indicators of breadth show where all the bargains went in the U.S. bull market that began in March 2009. An average of 379 companies in the benchmark index have increased during each of the six years from 2009 to 2014, compared with 307 in the 1990s, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Another way of gauging it is to compare the S&P 500, a market capitalization-weighted index whose biggest constituents exert the most influence, to the S&P 500 Equal Weight gauge, where such biases are stripped out. Larger gains in the equal- weight measure are a sign that gains are spread out among members.

Right now, the equal-weight gauge sits at 1.58 times the price of the S&P 500. On April 6, the measure rose to 1.6 times, the highest since data began in 1990.

Too Much

Too much enthusiasm is what will bring the bull market down, according to Doug Ramsey, who helps oversee $1.6 billion at money manager Leuthold Group in Minneapolis. Warning signs include surveys showing high levels of confidence among consumer and bullishness among market watchers, as well as the popularity of passive equity strategies, he wrote in a May 7 client note.

Ramsey, an early bull who has cut stock holdings from Leuthold’s tactical fund in the last year, says earnings that fueled the bull market are stalling too soon. The S&P 500 will be seeing profit contraction 12 months from now, he said in a May 5 interview on Bloomberg Radio with Tom Keene and Michael McKee.

“You’re not going to have a margin acceleration at this point in the economic cycle,” Ramsey, Leuthold’s chief investment officer, said by phone. “It’s a broadly overvalued market.”

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