Morning issues

A trillion-dollar chipmaker reports Wednesday, and beating hasn't been the good outcome

This is the morning issue of Friday, September 25, 2026, and it covers the stocks speeding up and slowing down, the earnings watchlist, the options radar and where money has been rotating between sectors.

Accelerating & decelerating, 24 September 2026

GEN is the one to look at: volatility doubled while the stock went through $25 and its own swing low in the same session. Beaten-up names do bounce, and it's worth knowing how little that usually means, with the median washed-out name across our history good for about half a percent over the following week. GEN has spent more of the last ten years down than up, which is the wrong side of that median to be standing on.

Speeding up

Ticker	Short vs Long ATR	Close	Last 5 Days
SNX	2.27×	$259.47	-1.9%
GEN	2.10×	$23.07	-23.6%
MGM	1.99×	$33.69	-12.1%
AMP	1.68×	$485.15	-11.1%
PAYX	1.67×	$101.59	-12.8%

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	0.26×	$163.77	+0.3%
TECH	0.35×	$72.57	+0.2%
FN	0.55×	$398.36	+4.6%
EIX	0.58×	$52.54	-5.3%
LII	0.59×	$367.78	+2.4%

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.

Earnings watchlist, 25 September 2026

Micron is the odd one on this page: it has beaten far more often than it has missed, and the median beat still closes red. The size of that -1.2% matters a lot less than the sign, because that is what the good outcome has paid; everyone else here, Nike and Jabil included, gets rewarded for a beat and punished for a miss.

The biggest names reporting in the next 7 days — and what each has typically done on report day:

Ticker	Reports	When	Market cap
MU	Wed Sep 30	after close	$1.03T
Median swing ±4.8% over 107 reports; typically -1.2% on a beat, -3.0% on a miss
ACN	Thu Oct 1	before open	$108B
Median swing ±4.8% over 100 reports; typically +1.6% on a beat, -2.3% on a miss
NKE	Thu Oct 1	after close	$60.4B
Median swing ±4.7% over 107 reports; typically +1.8% on a beat, -5.1% on a miss
CCL	Tue Sep 29	before open	$38.5B
Median swing ±4.0% over 107 reports; typically +0.2% on a beat, +0.1% on a miss
JBL	Wed Sep 30	before open	$38.0B
Median swing ±6.5% over 107 reports; typically +2.9% on a beat, -2.0% on a miss
MKC	Thu Oct 1	before open	$14.7B
Median swing ±2.6% over 107 reports; typically +0.5% on a beat, -5.8% on a miss
JEF	Mon Sep 28	after close	$11.2B
Median swing ±2.0% over 100 reports; typically -0.3% on a beat, +0.1% on a miss
AYI	Thu Oct 1	before open	$10.7B
Median swing ±5.5% over 99 reports; typically +2.9% on a beat, -4.9% on a miss
FDS	Wed Sep 30	before open	$10.1B
Median swing ±4.2% over 107 reports; typically +1.0% on a beat, -1.9% on a miss
KMX	Tue Sep 29	before open	$8.3B
Median swing ±6.3% over 107 reports; typically +2.8% on a beat, -7.1% on a miss

Options radar: META

META's implied volatility is pinned at the top of its own range and sitting above what the stock has actually been delivering, and the reason is right there on the tape: it cleared its 52-week high at 768.65 the same day. That is options getting expensive because a move already happened, and the buyer of that premium is paying full price for yesterday's news.

META options are the day's outlier: pricing at the 100th percentile of their own last 40 sessions (ATM implied vol 54%, which is 1.16× what the stock has actually been moving). Rich options on one name are sellers' territory, if the story fits.

Sector rotation, 24 September 2026

The month and the quarter disagree with each other. Energy still owns the three-month column, but over the last 21 sessions tech went from the back half of the board to running it, and the number that frames the whole card is SPY's own 0.41% over that same stretch: the index stood still while one sector did the work and most of the rest fell behind it.

Where money has been rotating — the eleven sectors ranked against the S&P 500 over three months:

	Sector	3-mo vs SPY	1-mo vs SPY
1	XLE Energy	+11.7	+1.1
2	XLV Health Care	+4.8	-3.1
3	XLC Communication Services	+3.6	+0.6
4	XLK Technology	+0.9	+6.8
5	XLF Financial	-2.4	-6.6
6	XLP Consumer Staples	-6.8	-5.4
7	XLY Consumer Discretionary	-7.2	-6.7
8	XLB Materials	-8.5	-7.3
9	XLRE Real Estate	-10.6	-7.8
10	XLI Industrial	-12.8	-5.5
11	XLU Utilities	-18.3	-8.9