As confidence soared among businesses, consumers and investors, popular stocks — especially technology shares — got more popular almost by virtue of already being popular. Likewise, panned stocks can’t seem to win favor even if their fundamentals or long-run reputation says otherwise, said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist with The Leuthold Group. “Bull markets do not age by the clock but rather by their character and often end with investor aggressiveness and the comfort of popularity,” said Paulsen. It’s this popular-to-panned ratio—deemed a new look at the market by Paulsen—that can play a big part in assessing late-cycle sentiment. In the current climate it can help confirm what recent market action has reflected — tech stocks look awfully vulnerable. U.S. stock benchmarks all traded deep in negative territory Monday though staged a rebound on Tuesday that largely left out tech shares. The sector’s woes this week are tied to a scandal around Facebook Inc.’s FB, -1.87% management of user data. The popular-to-panned ratio (tracked in the chart below, which compares the current market in blue to the dot-com run in orange) looks at the price performance of technology stocks, considered as roundly popular, expansion-linked stocks against conservative, defensive, “widow and orphan” utility stocks, which are lagging. The Dow Jones Utility Average index DJU, -0.49% is down 2.5% over one year and down over 5% year to date. The Nasdaq-100 Technology Sector index NDXT, +0.37% is up 36% over the past year and up over 11% year to date. via