---
title: "Equal-weight S&P 500 is down 2.8% in a month as the cap-weighted fund fell 1.1%"
url: "https://etf.net/news/equal-weight-s-p-500-is-down-2-8-in-a-month-as-the-cap-weighted-fund-fell-1-1-2026-09-11"
published_at: "2026-09-11T21:01:05.411Z"
updated_at: "2026-09-11T21:01:05.411Z"
byline: "ETF.net Research"
---

# Equal-weight S&P 500 is down 2.8% in a month as the cap-weighted fund fell 1.1%

Friday, September 11, 2026: equal-weight S&P 500 RSP -2.81% over one month vs S&P 500 SPY -1.06%; Friday SPY +0.85%, RSP +0.80% as 3,123 of 5,808 U.S. stocks advanced.

By ETF.net Research. Published Sep 11, 2026.

For a month the S&P 500 has not been a good description of U.S. stocks. The cap-weighted fund SPY is down **1.06%**. The equal-weight S&P 500 fund RSP is down **2.81%**, and the small-cap Russell 2000 fund IWM is down **4.57%**. Friday, when the two S&P 500 funds closed 0.05 percentage points apart, did not close that gap.

Chart: Equal-weight and small caps **took** the month's loss

## Friday, a majority advanced. The largest weight sat out

Counted across **5,808** U.S. common stocks listed on the NYSE, Nasdaq and NYSE American (funds, foreign listings, FX and crypto symbols excluded), **3,123** advanced, **2,427** declined and 258 were unchanged. That is a 54% advance rate: a slight majority.

Sixteen of 20 mega-caps finished higher. Nvidia, the largest holding in SPY at 8.1%, was little changed, down 0.09%.

The Nasdaq-100 did not tell the same Friday story. The Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ gained **0.87%**. The equal-weight Nasdaq-100 fund QQEW gained **0.41%**, a 0.46 percentage-point gap. Advanced Micro Devices rose 2.5% and Cisco 4.4%.

## Dell and HPE did the work equal-weight needed

Inside RSP, the lift came from names the cap-weighted index barely feels. Dell Technologies closed up **12%**, a session CNBC had at 10% during the day, extending a **355%** year-to-date gain. Hewlett Packard Enterprise rose 12% and HP 8.4%. Barron's tied the hardware group to Oracle's AI infrastructure spending. Oracle shares, the company doing the spending, fell 1.8%.

Chart: Dell and HPE **rallied**; Nvidia and Oracle did not

Server and PC suppliers, each a fraction of a percent in equal-weight, did the work the largest index weight did not.

## The month the typical stock took the loss

Friday repaired one session. It did not repair the stretch around it.

Table: Exposure, Friday, 5-day, 1-month

The month is the column Friday did not fix: equal-weight and small caps took the loss cap-weight only hinted at.

That month also showed up in how many of the 500 still sit above a short trend. By Tuesday, September 8, **42%** of S&P 500 stocks stood above their 50-day average, down from about **69%** in mid-August, Barchart's weakest such reading in five months.

Year to date RSP is still up **13.1%**, 0.4 percentage points ahead of SPY. That lead was earned before this month. If you own the cap-weighted fund and read its one-month **1.06%** dip as the market, you have been watching a different line from the one the typical stock and small caps have been on.

Source: etf.net, https://etf.net/news/equal-weight-s-p-500-is-down-2-8-in-a-month-as-the-cap-weighted-fund-fell-1-1-2026-09-11. Please cite the page URL.