Market snapshot
In brief
The story
The move. Healthcare finished the week 7.1% ahead of the S&P, a 2.5σ reading at the 98th percentile of the trailing year and the sector's fifth-best five-session run since January 2020. The managed care and health insurers basket matched it at +7.1% vs the index, with UnitedHealth +11%, Cigna +9% and CVS Health +8% accounting for 73% of that move. No headline on the sheet attributes the rally, so we leave it as a move.
The other side. High beta trailed the S&P by 5.4% on the week, a -2.0σ print at the 3rd percentile. AMD -12%, Meta -9%, Dell -19%, Intel -11% and Lam Research -13% supplied 32% of the drop, and Technology alone cost the book 4.4 points. The same names show up on the short side of low volatility's long-short spread, which gained 6.5% vs the index with Skydance -22%, Flex -21% and Coherent -20% in the bottom quintile. Memory and storage fell 5.8% vs the S&P, led by Seagate -10% and Micron -6%. Meta and Lam report Wednesday.
The market. The S&P rose 0.26% to 7,711 on the day but is down 1.1% on the week. The VIX fell 6.1% to 17.31 and the 10-year yield slipped 3bp to 5.12%. Breadth crossed back above half the index: 53% of members sit above their 50-day average, up from 31% a month ago, a 20-session change at the 84th percentile since 2020. The AI displacement risk basket is 16.6% ahead of the S&P over 20 sessions, with Accenture +31% and Gartner +23% doing most of the work.
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 | +0.3% +0.3σ | -1.1% -0.9σ | -0.6% -0.6σ | +13.1% |
| Dividend yield | +1.2% +1.2σ | +4.5% +2.0σ | +3.9% +0.9σ | +4.3% |
| Size | +1.4% +1.6σ | +3.7% +1.9σ | +2.7% +0.8σ | +0.1% |
| Low volatility | +0.8% +0.8σ | +3.8% +1.8σ | +5.2% +1.5σ | -4.5% |
| Value | +0.9% +1.1σ | +3.1% +1.5σ | +2.7% +0.7σ | +3.5% |
| Quality | -0.1% -0.5σ | -0.7% -1.1σ | -0.4% -0.5σ | +4.6% |
| Momentum | +0.0% -0.0σ | -3.3% -1.7σ | -5.3% -1.7σ | +12.9% |
| High beta | -0.4% -0.3σ | -5.4% -2.0σ | -7.8% -1.9σ | +10.7% |
Also
- Housing Starts 1.221M (1.3M expected)
- Building Permits 1.4M (1.39M expected)
- Reported today: CB beat (7.66 vs 6.79); COF beat (6.69 vs 5.5); EFX beat (2.26 vs 2.2) +14
- Memory & Storage basket -23.1% vs S&P over 20 sessions
- AI Displacement Risk basket +16.6% vs S&P over 20 sessions
- Asian Stocks Fall, Bucking U.S. — 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 · Oct 21
- Reporting Wednesday: META, TSLA, LRCX, PM and 22 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.