Week ending 2 Oct 2026: S&P 500 -0.2%, a mixed week

The week in one number

The S&P 500 (SPY) moved -0.2% this week. Measured against its own volatility over the past year that is a 0.1σ week, and over the last 262 weeks a move at least this large, either way, happened most weeks.

Indices and assets

	Week	Year to date
S&P 500 (SPY)	-0.2%	+13.7%
Nasdaq 100 (QQQ)	+0.7%	+22.4%
Russell 2000 small caps (IWM)	-0.2%	+15.1%
Dow Jones (DIA)	-1.2%	+7.5%
20+ year Treasuries (TLT)	-1.9%	-8.0%
Gold (GLD)	-3.4%	-4.1%
VIX (volatility index, level)	15.3 (+0.4 pts)	—

Sectors

Technology led (+1.8%) and Health care lagged (-2.6%): a spread of 4.5 percentage points between the best and worst sector.

Under the surface

Of the 517 stocks in our S&P 500 universe, 34% rose, and 38% beat the index itself. The typical (median) stock moved -1.1%, the average (equal-weight) stock -0.7%.

The spread between winners and losers (the gap between the stock at the 75th percentile and the one at the 25th) was 4.0%, narrower than 83% of the past year's weeks (typical: 4.7%). 20 stocks closed at a 52-week high during the week and 71 at a 52-week low.

Sector	Stocks	Median stock	Share that rose
Utilities	31	+1.0%	84%
Technology	67	+0.9%	60%
Energy	22	+0.9%	55%
Industrial	82	-0.4%	39%
Communications	45	-1.3%	38%
Consumer, Cyclical	57	-1.3%	33%
Basic Materials	17	-2.1%	24%
Consumer, Non-cyclical	101	-2.1%	16%
Financial	95	-2.2%	11%

The luck check

16 stocks moved more than 10% this week (13 up, 3 down). If each stock's weekly return were an independent draw from a bell curve with its usual weekly swing, we would expect about 19.8. That is close to this simple model's expectation (it puts 90% of weeks between 13 and 27), so the count alone gives little evidence that the week was unusual. It cannot show the opposite either: the model treats stocks as independent, and they are not.

Biggest movers

Gainers	Sector	Week
CCL	Consumer, Cyclical	+15.8%
LITE	Technology	+15.3%
SNPS	Technology	+15.1%
RCL	Consumer, Cyclical	+14.4%
COHR	Industrial	+13.9%

Losers	Sector	Week
FICO	Technology	-23.4%
ALNY	Consumer, Non-cyclical	-14.2%
APP	Communications	-13.7%
GPN	Consumer, Non-cyclical	-9.4%
WDC	Technology	-9.1%

What this week does not tell us

• Small overall market move: The S&P 500 fell by just 0.22%, a move smaller than 92% of past weeks, so this week does not provide strong evidence of a new trend or regime change in the market.
• Sector performance differences: Technology and Energy sectors rose modestly while Financials and Health Care declined, but these mixed results over one week cannot reliably indicate a durable sector rotation or leadership shift.
• Low market breadth: Only about 34% of stocks rose and the median stock declined by 1.1%, yet the S&P 500 was almost flat; this divergence could reflect a few large stocks offsetting broad weakness, but one week is too short to conclude anything about market health.
• Number of big movers within normal range: Sixteen stocks moved more than 10%, close to the 13–27 range expected from the model, so the amount of extreme individual stock moves this week does not signal unusual market stress or exuberance.

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Data: index, sector, VIX and named-stock prices from Yahoo Finance (adjusted closes); breadth, dispersion, highs and lows and the luck check computed from unadjusted daily closes of the 517 stocks in our S&P 500 universe (the US stocks our trading database tracks, with each share class counted (FOX/FOXA, NWS/NWSA); this list is not reconciled with the index's official constituents for the week, and at 517 it is larger than the index's ~503 lines, so it includes some stocks that are not current members), published as aggregates only; left out of every figure above, because a weekly price change beyond ±50% reflects a corporate action or a bad print rather than what shareholders gained or lost: CTVA (spun off Vylor, one VYLR share per CTVA share, 1 Oct 2026). Weeks run Friday close to Friday close. Not investment advice.