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Momentum's fifth-worst 60-session run since 2020 as Micron, Lam and Applied fall 24-35%

Wednesday, September 16, 2026 · as emailed at the close · the live view is always on the dashboard

Market snapshot

S&P 5007,553.33-0.4%
VIX17.7+3%
10-year5.01%+1bp
Breadth32%above 50-day · 61% a month ago

In brief

The story

The move. The momentum long book is 11.0% behind the S&P over 60 sessions, a z of -2.3 and the fifth-worst 60-session run since March 2020; today was the second session of the move. High beta is 11.3% behind, z -2.1, its worst 60-session stretch in a year. The same four chip names sit at the top of both lists: Micron -24%, Lam Research -34%, Intel -28%, Applied Materials -35%, together with Caterpillar -23% in momentum and Broadcom -13% in high beta. Technology accounts for about 6.5pp of each book's shortfall. On 60-session relative daily returns, low volatility and high beta run at r=-0.85, unchanged from 20 sessions earlier on overlapping windows.

The market. The S&P fell 0.43% to 7,553, leaving it 1.0% lower on the week and 1.6% lower over 20 sessions. The Fed set its rate at 4%, in line with expectations and up from 3.75%, which CNBC called the first hike since 2023; August retail sales rose 1.4% against 0.4% expected. The 10-year yield ended at 5.01%. Only 32% of the index is above its 50-day average, from 61% a month ago, a 20-session drop at the 11th percentile since 2020. Quality took the 20-day lead from value for the first session.

The baskets. Space Economy is 8.7% behind the S&P over 20 sessions, with RTX -13% and Lockheed Martin -11%. Regional Banks are 7.3% behind, Huntington and M&T both -10%. Hospitals & Providers are 6.7% ahead, DaVita +9%. Optical Interconnect lost 5.8% to the index on the week as Corning fell 14%. Lennar reported EPS of 1.23 against 1.28 expected; housing starts follow Thursday.

Who did it · 39% of the shortfall in these names

NameWeight60dContrib
MU Micron Technology5.0%-24%-1.24pp
LRCX Lam Research2.9%-34%-1.03pp
INTC Intel3.2%-28%-0.95pp
AMAT Applied Materials2.5%-35%-0.90pp
CAT Caterpillar Inc.2.6%-23%-0.64pp

By sector: Technology cost 6.5pp; Industrials cost 1.6pp; Financial Services 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-0.4% -0.6σ-1.0% -0.8σ-1.6% -0.9σ+10.9%
Size-0.4% -0.5σ+0.6% +0.3σ-1.5% -0.4σ+0.9%
Quality+0.2% +0.6σ+0.2% +0.2σ-0.0% -0.1σ+4.2%
Low volatility-0.4% -0.3σ+0.1% +0.1σ-1.4% -0.1σ-5.6%
Dividend yield-1.0% -1.0σ+0.0% -0.0σ-1.0% -0.3σ+4.7%
Value-1.2% -1.4σ+0.1% -0.0σ-0.2% -0.2σ+5.8%
Momentum+0.5% +0.4σ-1.7% -1.0σ-1.0% -0.6σ+15.7%
High beta+0.7% +0.5σ-2.6% -1.1σ-0.2% -0.3σ+14.2%

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 17

  • Thursday: Housing Starts (Aug), consensus 1.31M.
  • Thursday: Continuing Jobless Claims (Sep/05), consensus 1780K.
  • Thursday: Initial Jobless Claims (Sep/12), consensus 208K.

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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