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Value's 10th-worst five-session run since 2020 as banks and telcos fall

Tuesday, September 22, 2026 · as emailed at the close · the live view is always on the dashboard

Market snapshot

S&P 5007,764.27-0.0%
VIX14.2-4%
10-year4.96%+0bp
Breadth31%above 50-day · 61% a month ago

In brief

The story

The move. Value's long book finished five sessions 5.9% behind the S&P, a 3.3σ move, the worst week of the trailing year and the 10th-worst since January 2020, in the second session of the slide. Financial Services cost 2.81 points and Communication Services 1.04. Verizon fell 10%, Wells Fargo 7%, Bank of America and AT&T 6% and Berkshire Hathaway 3%; those five account for 30% of the shortfall. Reuters reported financial stocks fell with AI and a flattening yield curve in focus. The sector itself trailed the index by 5.3% on the week, a 3.0σ move. In the 3,000-name universe value lagged 5.1%, a 3.1σ move.

The other side. High beta beat the S&P by 5.8% on the week, with AMD +24%, Micron +18%, Intel +28%, Meta +10% and Lam Research +15% supplying 48% of the gain and Technology 5.23 points. The Memory & Storage basket led everything at +15.8% versus the index, Sandisk +23% and Seagate +19% alongside Micron. The same names sat in the short leg of the dividend yield spread, which lagged 4.7%. Over 60 sessions of daily relative returns to September 22, high beta and dividend yield long books read r=-0.88, from r=-0.86 twenty sessions earlier on overlapping windows.

The market. The S&P closed at 7,764, flat on the day and up 2.3% on the week, with the VIX at 14.21. Breadth narrowed: 31% of the index above its 50-day average against 61% a month ago. Energy trailed the S&P by 8.2% on the week; Barron's reported oil fell on a report Iran offered to open Hormuz in seven days. Basic Materials beat the index by 2.0% on the day. AutoZone reported EPS of 0.56 against 0.54 expected. Cintas, Paychex and General Mills report Wednesday.

Who did it · 30% of the shortfall in these names

NameWeight5dContrib
VZ Verizon4.0%-10%-0.48pp
WFC Wells Fargo5.0%-7%-0.48pp
BAC Bank of America5.0%-6%-0.39pp
T AT&T3.4%-6%-0.29pp
BRK-B Berkshire Hathaway5.0%-3%-0.24pp

By sector: Financial Services cost 2.8pp; Communication Services cost 1.0pp; Energy 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-0.0% -0.1σ+2.3% +1.2σ+1.6% +0.1σ+13.9%
High beta+0.7% +0.5σ+5.8% +2.1σ+6.8% +1.1σ+20.0%
Momentum+0.5% +0.4σ+3.4% +1.6σ+3.9% +0.8σ+19.2%
Quality+0.4% +1.0σ+1.2% +1.5σ+1.1% +0.6σ+5.2%
Size+0.3% +0.4σ-3.4% -1.7σ-6.8% -2.0σ-2.2%
Low volatility-0.5% -0.4σ-4.2% -1.8σ-6.2% -1.3σ-9.2%
Dividend yield-0.4% -0.4σ-5.0% -2.4σ-6.9% -1.9σ+0.5%
Value-1.1% -1.3σ-5.9% -3.3σ-5.6% -1.9σ+0.8%

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 23

  • Reporting Wednesday: CTAS, PAYX, GIS.

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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