From the end of 1999 to the end of 2001, the S&P 500 Equal Weight index returned 5.6% including dividends while the S&P 500 lost 19.9%.
The equal-weight index gives every company the same weight, so it tracks the average stock instead of the biggest ones.
That 2-year stretch covers the first part of the dot-com bust, which ran until October 2002.
The S&P 500 lost 9.10% in 2000 and 11.89% in 2001, including dividends.
Its price-only drop over the 2 years was 21.9%.
Here is how the 2 indexes did from the end of 1999 to the end of 2001, including dividends.
S&P 500 Equal Weight +5.6%
S&P 500 -19.9%
That left a gap of 25.5 percentage points.
When the biggest names crack, the average stock doesn't have to go down with them.
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