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Value's long-short spread falls 5.6% against the S&P on the week, its worst five-session run in a year, as the short leg's chip names rally

Monday, September 21, 2026 · as emailed at the close · the live view is always on the dashboard

Market snapshot

S&P 5007,764.22+1.5%
VIX14.8-0%
10-year4.96%-5bp
Breadth31%above 50-day · 58% a month ago

In brief

The story

The move. Value's long-short spread fell 5.6% against the S&P on the week, a z of -2.5, the 0th percentile of the trailing year and its worst five-session run in a year. The damage came from the short leg: Intel and Advanced Micro Devices each rose 25%, Coherent 21%, Moderna and Marvell 18%, together 15% of the move, with Technology alone costing 2.65pp. The same names carried the AI Infrastructure Leaders basket 8.4% past the S&P and the Optical Interconnect basket 13.0%, where Coherent, Ciena and Lumentum made up 83% of the move. In the 3,000-name universe, value was -4.5% on the week, -2.7σ.

The other side. Dividend yield fell 4.5% against the S&P on the week, z -2.2, also its worst five-session run in a year. Verizon -7%, PepsiCo -5%, Chevron, Philip Morris and AT&T -4%; Consumer Defensive cost 0.86pp, Communication Services 0.76pp, Utilities 0.69pp. The Defensives basket fell the same 4.5%, led by Verizon, Sysco and Republic Services. The two books' 60-session relative daily returns sit at r=+0.96, the highest pair on the board, against r=+0.95 twenty sessions earlier on overlapping windows.

The market. The S&P closed at 7,764.22, up 1.49%, z +1.8; the 10-year yield fell 5bp to 4.96% and the VIX held at 14.80. Reuters put it as AI stocks lifting Wall Street as oil fell and Treasury yields declined. Energy lagged the index by 4.0% on the day (z -2.4), Communication Services led by 2.2% (z +2.0). Only 31% of the index sits above its 50-day average, from 58% a month ago. AutoZone reports Tuesday.

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

NameLeg5dContrib
INTC Intelshort+25%-0.25pp
AMD Advanced Micro Devicesshort+25%-0.25pp
COHR Coherent, Inc.short+21%-0.21pp
MRNA Modernashort+18%-0.18pp
MRVL Marvell Technology, Inc.short+18%-0.18pp

By sector: Technology cost 2.6pp; Healthcare cost 1.0pp; Financial Services cost 0.8pp.

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+1.5% +1.8σ+1.9% +0.9σ+1.4% -0.0σ+14.0%
High beta+2.1% +1.6σ+5.1% +1.8σ+4.3% +0.6σ+19.1%
Momentum+0.8% +0.7σ+3.5% +1.7σ+2.2% +0.3σ+18.6%
Quality+0.5% +1.4σ+0.8% +1.0σ+0.5% +0.2σ+4.7%
Low volatility-1.8% -1.8σ-3.5% -1.5σ-4.4% -0.9σ-8.8%
Size-1.3% -1.5σ-3.6% -1.9σ-6.5% -1.9σ-2.5%
Dividend yield-1.8% -1.8σ-4.5% -2.2σ-5.7% -1.5σ+0.9%
Value-1.8% -2.2σ-4.5% -2.5σ-3.6% -1.3σ+2.0%

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 22

  • Reporting Tuesday: AZO.

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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