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Momentum's short leg does the damage: spread -12.8% against the S&P over 60 sessions

Thursday, September 10, 2026 · as emailed at the close · the live view is always on the dashboard

Market snapshot

S&P 5007,592.30-0.6%
VIX17.8+8%
10-year4.95%+12bp
Breadth33%above 50-day · 66% a month ago

In brief

The story

The move. Momentum's long-short spread is -12.8% against the S&P over 60 sessions, a z of -2.0 and the 4th percentile of the trailing year. The short leg did most of the work: Veeva Systems +61% (-0.61pp), Salesforce +48% (-0.48pp) and Workday +43% (-0.43pp) all sit in the bottom quintile, while ON Semiconductor -44% and KLA -31% are in the long book. The five names are 15% of the move; Technology accounts for -6.09pp, Industrials -0.80pp. On the revision tape, momentum's top quintile still carries net +19% raises against -9% in its bottom quintile, the widest gap on the board.

The market. The S&P 500 closed at 7,592, -0.58% on the day, -0.9% on the week and -1.9% over 20 sessions. The 10-year yield rose 12bp to 4.95%; MarketWatch reported yields surging toward the danger zone for stocks as inflation pressures heat up. VIX 17.84, +8.4%. Breadth: 33% of the index is above its 50-day average, from 66% a month ago, a 20-session change at the 9th percentile since 2020. 20-day realized vol is 8.9%, the 12th percentile of the trailing year.

The books. Quality's spread is -4.0% over 20 sessions, z -2.6, its worst 20-session run in a year and session seven of the move; Moderna +115% in the short leg cost 1.15pp, and the spread's 20-day vol of 10.9% sits at the 98th percentile. Cooper Companies fell 14.7% after reporting EPS of 1.15 against 1.12 expected; it is in the Size book. Housing Chain is -8.2% over 20 sessions, with Builders FirstSource -19%. Optical Interconnect is +7.2% on the week, Corning +13%.

Who did it · 15% of the shortfall in these names

NameLeg60dContrib
VEEV Veeva Systems Inc.short+61%-0.61pp
CRM Salesforceshort+48%-0.48pp
ON ON Semiconductorlong-44%-0.44pp
WDAY Workday, Inc.short+43%-0.43pp
KLAC KLA Corporationlong-31%-0.31pp

By sector: Technology cost 6.1pp; Industrials cost 0.8pp; Communication Services cost 0.5pp.

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-0.9% -0.8σ-1.9% -1.1σ+11.3%
Momentum-1.2% -1.2σ+2.1% +0.9σ-0.4% -0.4σ+16.3%
High beta-1.5% -1.3σ+2.8% +0.9σ-0.5% -0.4σ+15.4%
Quality-0.4% -1.1σ+0.0% -0.1σ-0.5% -0.5σ+3.5%
Value+0.7% +0.8σ+0.0% -0.1σ+1.4% +0.3σ+6.5%
Low volatility+0.4% +0.4σ-0.7% -0.2σ+0.1% +0.3σ-5.3%
Dividend yield+0.5% +0.5σ-1.1% -0.5σ+0.6% +0.1σ+4.9%
Size-0.2% -0.2σ-2.8% -1.4σ-2.2% -0.6σ+0.1%

Also

  • Existing Home Sales 3.98M (3.98M expected)
  • Producer Price Index MoM 0.4% (0.4% expected)
  • Reported today: ORCL beat (1.92 vs 1.74); CPRT missed (0.35 vs 0.3832); ADBE beat (6.13 vs 6.08)
  • Memory & Storage basket +10.7% vs S&P over 20 sessions
  • Travel & Experiences basket -10.1% vs S&P over 20 sessions
  • Bonds Sell Off Despite Buyback Operation — WSJ
  • U.S. — WSJ

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

Tomorrow · Sep 11

  • Friday: Core Inflation Rate MoM (Aug), consensus 0.2%.
  • Friday: Inflation Rate MoM (Aug), consensus 0.4%.
  • Friday: Core Inflation Rate YoY (Aug), consensus 2.4%.
  • Reporting Friday: KR.

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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