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Quality's long leg breaks on single names as the tech tape splits between memory and software

Tuesday, September 8, 2026 · as emailed at the close · the live view is always on the dashboard

Market snapshot

S&P 5007,674.13-0.6%
VIX15.7+8%
10-year4.80%+2bp
Breadth43%above 50-day · 66% a month ago

In brief

The story

The move. Quality's long-short spread finished the week 2.3% behind the S&P, a z of -2.3 and the 2nd percentile of the trailing year. The damage sat in the long leg: FICO -19%, Autodesk -18%, PTC -14% and Lululemon -14%, while Intel, in the short leg, rose 17%. Those five names account for 17% of the move, so the rest is broad. By sector, consumer cyclical cost 0.61pp, technology 0.56pp and utilities 0.41pp. The spread's 20-day realized vol is 10.8%, its 96th percentile of the year.

The tech split. AI Software & Platforms lost 6.8% against the S&P on the week, the second session of the move, with Autodesk -18%, Cadence -16% and Adobe -12%. AI Displacement Risk fell 7.5% behind, led by Gartner -13%, FactSet -8% and Omnicom -7%. On the other side, Memory & Storage is up 21.2% over 20 sessions on Sandisk +40%, Micron +16% and Seagate +13%; AI Infrastructure Leaders beat the index by 5.3% on the week (Dell +17%, Vertiv +12%, Corning +12%), and Power & Grid Buildout by 4.6%, its 95th percentile, on Vistra +10%, Constellation +9% and NRG +9%.

The market. The S&P closed at 7,674, down 0.58%, with the VIX up 8.2% to 15.72 and the 10-year at 4.80%, up 2bp. Only 43% of the index sits above its 50-day average, from 66% a month ago, a 20-session drop at the 16th percentile since 2020. Twenty-day realized vol is 8.6%, the 9th percentile of the year. Analysts raised 70 FY1 estimates and cut 64, a net +1.2% at the 9th percentile of the series. Casey's reported EPS of 7.37 against 6.78 expected. Cooper Companies reports Wednesday.

Who did it · 17% of the shortfall in these names

NameLeg5dContrib
FICO Fair Isaaclong-19%-0.19pp
ADSK Autodesklong-18%-0.18pp
INTC Intelshort+17%-0.17pp
PTC PTC Inc.long-14%-0.14pp
LULU Lululemon Athleticalong-14%-0.14pp

By sector: Consumer Cyclical cost 0.6pp; Technology cost 0.6pp; Utilities cost 0.4pp.

The board · factors vs S&P 500, relative return with z vs the trailing year, sorted by the week

Factor1D5D20DYTD
S&P 500 (computed) absolute-0.6% -0.8σ-0.1% -0.3σ-0.9% -0.8σ+12.6%
Momentum+1.4% +1.3σ+2.5% +1.1σ+2.3% +0.3σ+17.2%
High beta+1.6% +1.2σ+2.6% +0.8σ+2.2% +0.2σ+16.6%
Value-0.5% -0.6σ+0.8% +0.4σ+0.8% +0.1σ+5.7%
Low volatility-0.1% -0.0σ-0.5% -0.1σ-0.2% +0.2σ-5.6%
Dividend yield+0.1% +0.1σ-0.5% -0.3σ+1.1% +0.2σ+5.1%
Quality-0.2% -0.6σ-0.3% -0.4σ-0.0% -0.2σ+3.7%
Size-0.9% -1.0σ-1.9% -0.9σ-1.2% -0.3σ+1.0%

Also

Breadth, leadership, revisions, realized vol and the baskets, every day: the dashboard. Explore correlations →. Headlines are quoted from their publishers for context.

Tomorrow · Sep 9

  • Reporting Wednesday: COO.

The narrative in this brief is drafted by an AI model from Factor Watch's computed data and checked against it, but it can still be wrong — verify anything before you act on it.

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