---
title: "Equal-weight S&P 500 fund fell 4.8% over a month while SPY rose 0.4%"
url: "https://etf.net/news/equal-weight-s-p-500-fund-fell-4-8-over-a-month-while-spy-rose-0-4-2026-09-24"
published_at: "2026-09-24T20:59:23.584Z"
updated_at: "2026-09-24T20:59:23.584Z"
byline: "ETF.net Research"
---

# Equal-weight S&P 500 fund fell 4.8% over a month while SPY rose 0.4%

Thursday, September 24, 2026: equal-weight S&P 500 fund RSP is down 4.8% over the past month vs SPY up 0.4%; 2,308 of 5,841 U.S. common stocks advanced, 39.5%.

By ETF.net Research. Published Sep 24, 2026.

Thursday’s weak typical stock was not a small-cap story. The Russell 2000 fund IWM fell 0.08%, in line with the cap-weighted S&P 500 fund SPY. Small-caps have been weak on their own: IWM is down 5.6% over the past month. Thursday, it was the S&P 500’s own typical stock, equally weighted, that slipped. The equal-weight S&P 500 fund RSP is down 4.8% over that month against SPY’s 0.4% gain, a **5.2**-percentage-point hole. Thursday was more of the same split.

The S&P 500 closed at 7,703.83, down 0.03%, a session the weekly chart will swallow. RSP fell 0.50%. SPY fell 0.08%. RSP lagged SPY by 0.41 percentage points on the session, the month in miniature. [Wednesday the index and the stock-by-stock count fell together](https://etf.net/news/4-202-u-s-stocks-fell-as-the-s-p-500-dropped-0-72-2026-09-23). Thursday only the count kept falling. Of 5,841 U.S. common stocks listed on the NYSE, Nasdaq and NYSE American, 3,272 declined and 2,308 advanced.

## Meta held SPY near unchanged

Eleven of the twenty largest U.S. stocks finished higher. That is not the same as the mega-caps carrying the market. Nine of those twenty fell, including Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple. The work of holding SPY near unchanged came from a shorter list.

Meta Platforms rose **4.5%** and contributed **0.11** percentage points to SPY, the largest single contribution in the fund. Nvidia, still 8.2% of SPY, subtracted 0.03 percentage points. Alphabet, Eli Lilly and Advanced Micro Devices helped on the margin; Broadcom, Microsoft and Apple took some of that back.

Lilly had a dated reason. The Food and Drug Administration approved Onswik, the drugmaker’s once-weekly basal insulin, for adults with type 2 diabetes. Meta was still on the Muse run that [already lifted it 11% on Monday](https://etf.net/news/just-over-half-of-u-s-stocks-rose-monday-meta-and-the-chipmakers-still-moved-the-s-p-500-2026-09-21). Oracle fell 3.5% after citing force majeure on a New Mexico data-center project. Intel rose 3.9%. Walmart fell 2.7%. The Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ finished 0.01% lower.

## Same 500 companies, different weights

RSP owns the same 500 companies SPY does. It does not own them the same way. Technology is **17%** of RSP and **39%** of SPY.

Chart: SPY’s technology weight is more than **double** RSP’s

The ten largest names are 39% of SPY; RSP resets toward a fifth of a percent per stock. RSP also carries more utilities and real estate, 5.6% and 5.5% against SPY’s 2.0% and 1.8%. The utilities sector fund XLU is down 8.4% over the past month; the real estate sector fund XLRE is down 7.4%.

Chart: Utilities and real estate fell harder than equal-weight

Part of the 5.2-percentage-point gap is that mix, not a pure headcount of who rose. One AI-agent rally and one insulin approval can hold the cap-weighted fund still. They cannot hold the equal-weight fund.

SPY’s 0.4% month is a description of that 39% technology weight and those ten names. RSP’s 4.8% decline is a description of the other 490. They are the same 500 companies. They have not been the same holding. SPY can keep showing a different month than the typical stock for as long as those weights hold. Thursday they held.

Source: etf.net, https://etf.net/news/equal-weight-s-p-500-fund-fell-4-8-over-a-month-while-spy-rose-0-4-2026-09-24. Please cite the page URL.