Nasdaq-100 fund is flat over five days as equal-weight S&P 500 falls 2.5%
On Thursday, September 10, the Nasdaq-100 fund is down 0.08% over five sessions; equal-weight S&P 500 shares have fallen 2.48%.
Thursday was the session in which the Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ joined a decline that the equal-weight S&P 500 fund RSP and the small-cap Russell 2000 fund IWM had already been logging all week. QQQ lost 1.06%, and over five sessions it is down 0.08%. RSP is down 2.48% over those sessions, IWM 2.15%. Over a month, the S&P 500 fund SPY is down 1.6%, RSP 3.4%, and IWM 4.4%.
Of 5,816 U.S. common stocks listed on the NYSE, Nasdaq and NYSE American:
Chart: **One in three** listed U.S. stocks rose
238 were unchanged. The S&P 500 closed at 7,592.30, down 0.58%.
Apple offset Nvidia, not the other 500 names
A day after Apple unveiled the iPhone 18 Pro and its first foldable phone, the shares rose 3.6% and added 0.25 percentage points to SPY. Nvidia, still that fund's largest weight, subtracted 0.19 percentage points. Those two nearly cancelled. The rest of the holdings did not.
SPY lost 0.59%. The eight largest single-name swings inside it accounted for 0.21 percentage points of that drop. The other 496 holdings produced the rest.
Only 6 of 20 mega-caps rose. Microsoft, Alphabet and Exxon were among the six, none of them in Apple's league. Nvidia fell 2.4%. Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Tesla fell with it.
Chipmakers did the visible damage in the Nasdaq-100. Micron dropped 4.9%, Intel 5.6%, Advanced Micro Devices 3.4%. QQQ lost 1.06%, almost twice SPY's decline, and the Nasdaq-100 index itself closed at 29,103.51, down 1.08%. Apple and Alphabet were the largest lifts in that fund too, and they were not enough.
Equal-weight S&P 500 lagged cap weight again
RSP lost 0.69% on Thursday, 0.10 percentage points more than SPY. The typical S&P 500 stock had a slightly worse session than the cap-weighted portfolio, which is what a 33% advance rate would lead you to expect. Apple's 0.25 percentage-point lift in SPY is one contributor to that gap. It is not the whole of it: technology is 21 percentage points more of SPY than of RSP. That Thursday gap is the small end of a split that has been building for a month.
Lawrence G. McMillan of Option Strategist wrote on September 7 that breadth had "completely reversed" and turned "very positive," enough, in his measure, for a new buy signal from the NYSE-based breadth oscillator. The three sessions since Labor Day have not confirmed it. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were all broad declines: Wednesday, 4,076 stocks fell; Thursday, 3,659 did.
The CPI session that would change the read
Friday's August consumer-price index is the next scheduled print, with a Federal Reserve decision due the following week. For Thursday's read to change, a majority of those 5,816 names would need to advance, and RSP would need to beat SPY. Another bounce in Apple or Nvidia while most listed U.S. stocks still fall would not.
Frequently asked
Why did the Nasdaq-100 fund fall hardest on Thursday if it's flat for the week?
Chipmakers led Thursday's drop, Micron, Intel and AMD all fell sharply, but the fund had held up earlier in the week while equal-weight and small caps were already sliding.
Didn't Apple's iPhone launch help the market?
Apple rose 3.6% and added a quarter of a percentage point to the S&P 500 fund, but Nvidia's decline cancelled that out and the other holdings did the damage.
What would it take to change this read?
A majority of the 5,816 listed U.S. stocks would need to advance and the equal-weight fund would need to beat the cap-weighted one.
What's next on the calendar?
Friday's August consumer-price index, with a Federal Reserve decision the following week.