It beats almost every quarter and still closes red. It reports Wednesday.
This is the morning issue of Saturday, September 19, 2026, and it covers the most overbought and oversold names, the levels that broke or held, the earnings watchlist and the stocks speeding up and slowing down.
Overbought / oversold, 18 September 2026
I came to this one looking for a technical story and got a sector map instead. Both of the genuinely stretched names are oil refiners, which is what happens when energy beats the S&P by better than 18% over three months, and the beaten-down end is mostly net-lease landlords out of the weakest sector of the last month. Read it as the rotation showing up in RSI form rather than as anything about to bounce.
Most overbought
| Ticker | Level | RSI Percentile | Close | Last 5 Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MPC | Extreme overbought | 99th | $424.89 | +7.3% |
| CHT | Extreme overbought | 99th | $45.90 | +2.3% |
| VLO | Extreme overbought | 98th | $413.28 | +5.9% |
Most oversold
| Ticker | Level | RSI Percentile | Close | Last 5 Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ADC | Extreme oversold | 0th | $68.05 | -4.5% |
| NNN | Extreme oversold | 0th | $41.55 | -5.3% |
| MGM | Extreme oversold | 0th | $37.81 | -5.2% |
What's happened after this before
| Ticker | Next 3 Days | Next 7 Days | Next 30 Days | Prior Times |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VLO | 59% · +0.4% | 58% · +0.8% | 63% · +2.3% | 489 |
| It kept going — higher 60% of the time, so "overbought" has not meant due to fall for this name | ||||
| NNN | 56% · +0.3% | 56% · +0.5% | 63% · +1.4% | 449 |
| It did tend to bounce — higher 58% of the time on average across the three windows | ||||
| ADC | 57% · +0.4% | 57% · +0.5% | 59% · +1.5% | 458 |
| It did tend to bounce — higher 58% of the time on average across the three windows | ||||
| MPC | 54% · +0.4% | 59% · +1.0% | 59% · +2.3% | 288 |
| It kept going — higher 58% of the time, so "overbought" has not meant due to fall for this name | ||||
| CHT | 47% · -0.0% | 54% · +0.2% | 64% · +1.0% | 428 |
| It kept going — higher 55% of the time, so "overbought" has not meant due to fall for this name | ||||
| MGM | 53% · +0.3% | 55% · +0.7% | 55% · +1.5% | 496 |
| It did tend to bounce — higher 54% of the time on average across the three windows | ||||
Each cell: how often the stock was higher, and its average move, every prior time it hit this level. Under the hood the windows are 3, 5 and 20 trading sessions. The line under each name is what that record says.
Worth sitting with: VLO, MPC, CHT are on this list for being at an extreme, and their own history says the extreme has not been the thing to trade against.
The Levels Map gives you the whole board: every name at an extreme, with where it stalls.
Key levels, 18 September 2026
The best five-day record in this batch belongs to STRL climbing back up to the $500 round it lost earlier in the month, comfortably ahead of what the average stock does after an event like this. The one clean precedent we have is recent and encouraging: it did the same thing off $475 on September 10 and added 4.3% over the next five sessions. The other thing worth noticing is that DELL and NET were both turned away at 52-week highs, which has not historically been the bad news that label sounds like.
FAF broke below a swing low at $71.22 (closed -2.3% through it).
Across 102,630 prior times a stock did this, it was higher five sessions later 54% of the time — the move through the level has not been the direction to follow.
Also at a level
| Ticker | What happened | Level | Closed through |
|---|---|---|---|
| LEN | Broke below round number | $80.00 | -4.5% |
| ALKS | Broke below round number | $45.00 | -3.6% |
| CLF | Got rejected at swing high | $12.85 | |
| DELL | Got rejected at 52-week high | $593.98 | |
| NET | Got rejected at 52-week high | $336.90 | |
| STRL | Bounced off round number | $500.00 |
The Levels Map carries every name being tested right now, not just this one.
Earnings watchlist, 19 September 2026
PAYX reports Wednesday morning, and it is the strange one here: it beats far more often than it misses, and the median beat day still closes red. The asymmetry is the whole story. Good news buys a shrug, while the rare miss has cost 4.2%, so almost everything that ever happens to this stock on report day happens in the handful of quarters where it comes up short.
The biggest names reporting in the next 7 days — and what each has typically done on report day:
| Ticker | Reports | When | Market cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| COST | Thu Sep 24 | after close | $426B |
| Median swing ±1.4% over 95 reports; typically +0.1% on a beat, -1.3% on a miss | |||
| CTAS | Wed Sep 23 | before open | $79.8B |
| Median swing ±2.9% over 107 reports; typically +1.2% on a beat, -2.0% on a miss | |||
| AZO | Tue Sep 22 | before open | $50.1B |
| Median swing ±2.1% over 97 reports; typically +0.4% on a beat, -0.1% on a miss | |||
| PAYX | Wed Sep 23 | before open | $43.4B |
| Median swing ±2.7% over 107 reports; typically -0.3% on a beat, -4.2% on a miss | |||
| DRI | Thu Sep 24 | before open | $25.6B |
| Median swing ±3.2% over 107 reports; typically +1.3% on a beat, -3.8% on a miss | |||
| GIS | Wed Sep 23 | before open | $21.0B |
| Median swing ±1.9% over 107 reports; typically +0.7% on a beat, -3.3% on a miss | |||
| SNX | Thu Sep 24 | before open | $20.7B |
| Median swing ±5.8% over 91 reports; typically +1.2% on a beat, -5.5% on a miss | |||
| KEP | Mon Sep 21 | time not announced | $15.1B |
| Median swing ±1.4% over 65 reports; typically 0.0% on a beat, +0.4% on a miss | |||
| AIR | Tue Sep 22 | time not announced | $5.8B |
| Median swing ±5.1% over 107 reports; typically +2.0% on a beat, -1.5% on a miss | |||
| UEC | Wed Sep 23 | time not announced | $5.5B |
| Median swing ±3.3% over 75 reports; typically +0.9% on a beat, -1.0% on a miss | |||
Accelerating & decelerating, 18 September 2026
Acceleration has no direction, and today's list is the clearest reminder of that in a while: GNRC and ILMN are on it because they are running, AN is on it purely because it came apart and fell 17.4% in a week. At the other end MKTX has gone so quiet that its last three days barely register against its own month.
Speeding up
| Ticker | Short vs Long ATR | Close | Last 5 Days |
|---|---|---|---|
| GNRC | 1.78× | $207.44 | +10.9% |
| AN | 1.68× | $168.29 | -17.4% |
| SWKS | 1.51× | $88.76 | +0.5% |
| ILMN | 1.50× | $239.62 | +16.1% |
| CHT | 1.47× | $45.90 | +2.3% |
When stocks are speeding up, check the options pricing. Cheap options on stocks that are accelerating create a directional edge.
Slowing down
| Ticker | Short vs Long ATR | Close | Last 5 Days |
|---|---|---|---|
| MKTX | 0.21× | $163.42 | +0.3% |
| TECH | 0.36× | $72.37 | +0.3% |
| FRHC | 0.50× | $164.48 | -0.6% |
| NTES | 0.52× | $116.19 | +0.5% |
| EIX | 0.55× | $55.31 | -1.2% |
When stocks are slowing down, check the options pricing. Expensive options on slowing stocks create an income edge.
Short vs long ATR = 3-day against 27-day average true range; above 1× the daily ranges are widening, below 1× they're compressing.
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