Market snapshot
In brief
The story
The move. The AI Infrastructure Leaders basket, 22 names, lost 6.5% against the S&P on the week, a 1.6σ move and the 6th percentile of the trailing year. Seagate fell 15%, Coherent and Teradyne 14% each, together 28% of the move, and technology accounted for 6.25 points of it. The four-name Optical Interconnect basket fell 7.1% on the same basis, with Coherent taking 3.56 points off it, Lumentum down 9% and Corning down 8%. On 60 sessions of benchmark-relative daily returns, AI Infrastructure Leaders and the high beta long book remain the most correlated pair on the board at r=+0.93.
The other side. AI Displacement Risk, six names, gained 4.5% against the S&P on the week, the 88th percentile of the year. Accenture rose 10%, CDW 7% and FactSet 4%, three-quarters of the move.
The books. Quality's long-short spread is up 3.2% against the S&P over 20 sessions, z +2.6 and the 98th percentile of the trailing year, now nine sessions into the run. PTC, up 42%, and NetApp, up 27%, led the long leg; Charter at -29%, MGM at -26% and Mosaic at -25% did the work on the short side. Quality's 60-session relative correlation with Payments & Fintech moved to r=+0.03 from r=-0.28 in the window ending September 14, a change of 0.31 coefficient points on overlapping windows.
The market. The S&P closed at 7,807.79, off 0.05% on the day and up 0.6% on the week, with the VIX at 15.21, up 2.5%. Breadth sits at 37% above the 50-day average against 38% a month ago, and 20-day realized vol is 9.7%, the 14th percentile of the year. Reuters called the tape mixed as oil rose and investors waited on earnings; JPMorgan, Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth and Goldman report Tuesday.
Who did it · 28% of the move in these names
| Name | Weight | 5d | Contrib |
|---|---|---|---|
| STX Seagate Technology | 4.5% | -15% | -0.71pp |
| COHR Coherent, Inc. | 4.5% | -14% | -0.65pp |
| TER Teradyne | 4.5% | -14% | -0.65pp |
By sector: Technology cost 6.2pp; Industrials cost 0.3pp.
The board · factors vs S&P 500, relative return with z vs the trailing year, sorted by the week
| Factor | 1D | 5D | 20D | YTD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 (computed) absolute | -0.0% -0.1σ | +0.6% +0.1σ | +2.3% +0.3σ | +14.5% |
| Low volatility | +1.0% +1.1σ | +2.4% +1.2σ | -2.7% -0.4σ | -8.0% |
| Dividend yield | +0.8% +0.8σ | +1.6% +0.7σ | -5.8% -1.5σ | -0.4% |
| Value | +0.8% +0.9σ | +0.9% +0.5σ | -5.8% -1.8σ | +0.8% |
| Size | +0.3% +0.4σ | +0.4% +0.2σ | -4.8% -1.3σ | -3.6% |
| Quality | -0.1% -0.3σ | -0.1% -0.3σ | +1.9% +1.0σ | +5.9% |
| High beta | -1.5% -1.2σ | -3.1% -1.3σ | +3.6% +0.5σ | +17.4% |
| Momentum | -1.3% -1.3σ | -2.5% -1.4σ | +2.6% +0.4σ | +17.6% |
Also
- Optical Interconnect basket +11.4% vs S&P over 20 sessions
- Regional Banks basket -9.9% vs S&P over 20 sessions
- Quality × Payments & Fintech: 60-session correlation of daily returns minus the S&P 500 is r=+0.03 (60 paired sessions), versus r=-0.28 (60 paired sessions) for the 60-session period ending 2026-09-14, 20 sessions earlier. Factors use long portfolios.
- Stocks Rise as Oil Eases After Russian Diesel Deal Despite Middle East Tension — WSJ
- Wall Street mixed as oil prices surge, investors await earnings, economic data — Reuters
Breadth, leadership, revisions, realized vol and the baskets, every day: the dashboard. Explore correlations →. Headlines are quoted from their publishers for context.
Tomorrow · Oct 13
- Tuesday: Existing Home Sales MoM (Sep), consensus -0.3%.
- Tuesday: Existing Home Sales (Sep), consensus 3.96M.
- Reporting Tuesday: JPM, JNJ, UNH, GS and 3 more.
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.