Dow (DIA) is Down 2.3% month to date
- The XLV was down 2.52% to $167 reflecting the weighting of large cap biophrarma drugs in the ETF, the IBB was down 2.17% to the $207 level.
- The XLK was up only 0.32% but other tech sectors did better but volatile; SMH up 1.19%.,NVDA down 2%, AMD and DELL strong.
- Energy was up 1.1% and is the Sector to watch as the War continues to Rage on.
Healthcare and biotech stocks were weak yesterday with the XBI down 1.15% and the larger cap weighted IBB down even more down 2.37%. This performance divergence may be due to two large cap stocks that had bad news: AMGN off 10% to $393 level and Novartis (NVS) off 13.93%. We have a small position in NVS and have no position in AMGN.
- Novartis (NVS) had a really bad day with two failures in the clinic,one for del-desiran for a rare neuromuscular disease and another drug candidate pelacarsen that failed to reduce heart attacks and strokes.
- The Novartis trial reverberated to the AMGEN trial as investors weighed concerns that their cholesterol drug olppsiran could have issues. BMO downgraded the stock o market perform.
In case you haven’t looked at the weighting of the S&P500 here are the latest as of 9/4/26
- I knew technology was a high but 38.2% wow!
- Financials are #2 weighting at 12%.
- Healthcare down to 9.2%.
- Energy only 3.5%.
Here is another breakdown of the S&P 500 (GICS) as of 9/5/26:
- TECH is still the leader but 33.2%
- Other values are close to prior list.
Here is a breakdown of one alternate weighed index, an S&P 500 Equal Weighted Index:
- In the short term, the S&P 500 is the obvious winner. However, in the long term, the results aren’t as clear.
- One index that one should keep in mind is the Russell 2000 (IWM) which is up 19.71% YTD and 21.68% over one year. The IWM lately has correlated with small cap biotech performance.with a 16.4% weighting in “health technology” stocks.
- On any given day you can look at the breadth of performance of SMID biotechs within the IWM.