Most stocks fell, and Apple more than accounted for the S&P 500's drop
3,317 US stocks fell and 2,287 rose on Tuesday, September 29, and Apple more than accounted for the 0.17% decline in the fund that holds the S&P 500.
Key takeaways
Most US stocks fell on Tuesday, and SPY, the fund that holds the S&P 500, fell 0.17% to $764.30. Apple accounted for more than that loss, so the other holdings were up as a group. A few large gainers did that work, not a broad rise.
Of 5,862 US common stocks on the NYSE, Nasdaq and NYSE American, 3,317 fell and 2,287 rose. Another 258 were unchanged. The selling was less one-sided than on Monday, when 3,819 fell and 1,790 rose, and it was still a decline.
Apple fell 2.7%. At 7.4% of SPY, that drop took 0.20 percentage points off the fund, more than the fund lost.
Meta rose 3.3%, more help to SPY than any other holding. Broadcom, Applied Materials and Micron rose too. That kind of offset was enough to lift QQQ, the fund that holds the Nasdaq-100. It rose 0.20% because Meta, Applied Materials, Micron and Space Exploration Technologies outweighed Apple there.
Fourteen of the 20 largest US stocks fell, including Nvidia, the largest holding in SPY. The average S&P 500 stock fell as well: RSP, which holds each of those stocks in the same amount, lost 0.11%. Smaller companies fell more than that. IWM, the fund that holds the Russell 2000, an index of smaller US stocks, lost 0.35%.
Only the Nasdaq-100 fund rose
The split is older than Tuesday. As of Friday, September 25, RSP was down 4.6% over the prior month, including dividends, while SPY was up 0.9%. The two were 5.5 percentage points apart.
On Monday, Jonathan Krinsky at BTIG said the S&P 500 had just logged nine straight days with more 52-week lows than highs, while the index sat within 2% of its recent peak. A 52-week low is the lowest price in a year. He said that combination had otherwise appeared only in December 1999 and January 2000, since 1990.
SPY closed 1.9% below its 52-week high. RSP closed 6.2% below its own. On Tuesday, RSP fell 0.06 percentage points less than SPY. A day of that size does not put the average stock back near its high.
Frequently asked
How much did Apple drag on the S&P 500 fund?
Apple fell 2.7% and, at 7.4% of the fund, took 0.20 percentage points off it, more than the fund's 0.17% loss.
Did most stocks actually fall?
Of 5,862 US common stocks, 3,317 fell and 2,287 rose, with another 258 unchanged.
What rose enough to matter?
Meta rose 3.3%, more help than any other holding, and Broadcom, Applied Materials and Micron rose too.
How did equal-weight and smaller stocks do?
The equal-weight S&P 500 fund lost 0.11%, and the Russell 2000 fund lost 0.35%.
