S&P 500 business models on the wrong side of AI: seat-based IT services and outsourcing, ad agencies, and data/research vendors whose products LLMs increasingly substitute. A monitoring basket (potential underperformers / hedge candidates), not a buy list. Small by design — most pure displacement stories live outside the index.
Follow the theme against the wider market.
Series before each basket's creation date are a backtest of the membership as of creation; live tracking starts at creation.
| Return | 1 day | 5 days | 20 days | 60 days | MTD | YTD | 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basket | -0.8% | +4.6% | +5.6% | +27.0% | +9.6% | +5.8% | +10.1% |
| vs FW 3000 | +0.4% | +7.1% | +6.2% | +23.5% | +9.8% | -5.2% | -3.3% |
1y · 2025-10-16 – 2026-10-16 · 252 / 252 sessions
Basket total returns · Annualized using 252 trading sessions · 0% risk-free rate and downside target. As of 2026-10-16 · close.
Sharpe: average daily simple return divided by its sample standard deviation, multiplied by √252. The risk-free rate is assumed to be 0%; this is not a cash-adjusted ratio.
Sortino: average daily simple return divided by downside deviation, multiplied by √252. Downside deviation is the square root of the average squared shortfall below 0%, counting all sessions, including zeros for gains.
Historical volatility: √(252 × average squared daily log return), matching the Vol page’s realized-volatility convention. This differs from the sample standard deviation used in Sharpe.
Each period requires complete history and at least 5 sessions. MTD and YTD follow the calendar; 1y is 252 sessions. Missing data or an undefined ratio displays — with a reason. Short periods can produce unstable ratios; intraday snapshots include a partial session. History before this basket’s creation is backtested. If a new basket has no stored daily return series yet, estimates from its rounded published chart levels are marked ≈.
Current members and the reasoning behind each inclusion. Returns are for individual holdings.
| Why it’s included | Added | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACNAccenture | Consulting both wins AI projects and cannibalizes seats — the contested case | +2.1% | +10.7% | +27.7% | -11.4% | 2026-06-11 |
| DXCDXC Technology Company | Legacy IT services and outsourcing | -1.2% | +9.8% | +26.3% | -7.0% | 2026-06-11 |
| STGWStagwell Inc. | Ad agency network — creative volume deflation | -1.6% | +3.8% | +10.6% | +83.6% | 2026-06-11 |
| ITGartner, Inc. | Gartner: subscription research/advisory whose deliverables LLMs increasingly draft | -0.9% | +7.4% | +10.5% | -18.6% | 2026-06-11 |
| CTSHCognizant Technology Solutions Corporation | IT outsourcing: AI deflation of billable hours | +0.4% | +11.5% | +10.3% | -19.0% | 2026-06-11 |
| EPAMEPAM Systems, Inc. | IT services displacement — its own S&P 500 exit is the thesis playing out | -0.0% | +7.9% | +7.2% | -40.4% | 2026-06-11 |
| FDSFactSet Research Systems Inc. | Financial data/research workflows exposed to LLM substitution | -0.1% | +5.0% | +6.3% | +5.4% | 2026-06-11 |
| OMCOmnicom Group Inc. | Creative ad production deflated by generative tools | -0.2% | +5.3% | +5.2% | +2.9% | 2026-06-11 |
| CDWCDW Corporation | IT reseller/VAR: hardware-attach and services intermediation squeezed as spend shifts to hyperscalers | -2.5% | +5.8% | +2.9% | +12.2% | 2026-06-11 |
| CNXCConcentrix Corporation | Customer-experience outsourcing — seat-based BPO | +0.7% | +7.4% | +0.0% | -30.3% | 2026-06-11 |
| RHIRobert Half Inc. | White-collar staffing — hiring displaced by AI | -3.1% | -1.8% | -10.9% | +30.3% | 2026-06-11 |
| MANManpowerGroup Inc. | Staffing — entry-level placement exposure | -5.1% | -21.4% | -28.0% | +42.8% | 2026-06-11 |
Partial price histories: CNXC from 2020-11-24.
Equal-weighted; monthly rebalance, buy-and-hold between rebalances; dated membership changes reset the target weights.
Tracked since 2026-06-11. Membership decisions are documented below.
Read the methodology →Basket returns include dividends. “vs FW 3000” compares the basket’s compounded growth with the benchmark’s. Green means positive; red means negative.
EPAM re-enters as a broad-universe member: dropped from the S&P 500 basket when it left the index, but it remains an FW 3000 constituent and the purest displacement case in the theme. Effective-dated to creation like the other broad members.
FW 3000 pass: added CNXC, DXC, RHI, MAN, STGW — names outside the S&P 500 but inside our broad universe; they count only in the FW 3000 version of this basket. Effective-dated to creation so the broad backtest covers the full set. The S&P 500 basket is unchanged.
EPAM removed — dropped from the S&P 500 (caught by the constituent check on its first production run). An index exit by a displacement candidate is the thesis playing out, but basket rules require current constituents.
Widening pass: added IT and CDW. The S&P 500 holds few pure displacement candidates (staffing, ad-tech and outsourcing pure plays sit outside the index), so this basket stays deliberately small. No clean inverse-theme ETF exists to pin as a reference. New members are effective-dated to basket creation so the backtest and the reference correlation cover the widened set (the basket was one day old, with no meaningful live history to restate).
Initial composition: 5 names. IPG excluded (Omnicom merger), MTCH excluded (index membership uncertain).